Buttons are back.
If you gave up on WhatsApp buttons, OpenWA 5.1 gives you a reason to try them again. Send reply buttons, lists, forms, image carousels and booking cards through one sendInteractive(to, content) API, with the same JSON document in the SDK and HTTP API.
Available to Insiders and above. Update OpenWA and restart your licensed session to load the new capabilities.
Choose a reply in the conversation; route it by its stable ID. These are illustrations from our interactive message examples. Recipient appearance varies by WhatsApp version.
Get answers your code can use
onInteractiveResponse gives you the selected reply or list row ID. onFormResponse gives you answers keyed by your own question IDs, including arrays for multiple selections:
client.onFormResponse(({ answers, originalMessageId }) => {
// { plan: 'pro', extras: ['delivery', 'gift'] }
console.log(answers);
console.log(originalMessageId); // Match the submission to the form you sent.
});You can use those answers directly in a booking, support or onboarding workflow. There's no need to scrape the displayed reply or work out which translated option a person selected. Keep your application IDs stable while changing the labels your customers see.
Responses include the sender, chat, response message ID and original message reference, and HTTP integrations can subscribe to interactive.response on the event stream. Subscribe before sending, and deduplicate responses by message ID when your integration reconnects or syncs history.
A form submission becomes structured answers your application can use.
Start with a few lines
A customer shouldn't need to guess which phrase your bot understands. Give each reply a label they can read and an ID your application can act on:
client.onInteractiveResponse(response => {
if (response.type === 'reply') console.log(response.id);
});
await client.sendInteractive(to, {
type: 'buttons', body: 'What can we help you with?',
actions: [
{ type: 'reply', id: 'order', label: 'Track my order' },
{ type: 'reply', id: 'support', label: 'Talk to support' },
],
});These examples use a started, licensed client and the recipient's chat ID in to. Keep the IDs stable and change or translate the labels whenever you need to; your routing code keeps working.
More ways to build a conversation
| What you're building | Message type |
|---|---|
| A short menu or confirmation | Reply buttons |
| A website link, phone action or copyable code | URL, call and copy buttons |
| A longer menu grouped by category | A sectioned list |
| Preferences, choices or a sequence of questions | A form |
| Visual options people can browse and choose | An image carousel |
| Appointment information with a details view | A booking card |
Let people browse image cards and choose an option without leaving the conversation.
Give an appointment its own card and details view, using the recipient app’s native layout.
Explore all eight illustrated examples in the interactive messages guide, including URL/call/copy actions, sectioned lists and single- or multiple-choice forms.
One document across your integrations
The SDK and Easy API accept the same JSON message document. Send it to POST /api/messages/sendInteractive, then consume interactive.response from the HTTP event stream. Save a template and reuse it from a bot, service or workflow tool.
defineInteractiveMessage(...) validates reusable documents and keeps their specific TypeScript type, with defaults and errors that point to the field that needs attention. For integrations that already construct protocol messages, sendRawMessage accepts raw WhatsApp protobuf Message objects. Native actions also have an explicit extension format.
Upgrade
npm install @open-wa/wa-automate@^5.1.0Read the interactive messages guide for all message types, response handlers, media and HTTP examples, and recipient support limits. This is the new V5 API; use it for new integrations rather than carrying over V4 button calls.
Recipient apps control rendering, so what appears can vary between WhatsApp versions. Send reply buttons separately from URL, call and copy actions. Booking cards use WhatsApp's calendar icon and details layout; custom booking icons and header images aren't supported here.
Also improved
- Bun package imports: local development can resolve TypeScript source, while published packages resolve their distributed files. This shared fix applies across 30 packages.
- Event subscriptions: registering the browser bridge again preserves installed event bindings.
- License readiness: health responses report the applied, server-confirmed license state, with improvements to host-account resolution and bootstrap recovery.
Package alignment
The main interactive change spans the client, schema, API, core and Easy API packages. Coordinated version bumps and dependency updates in 22 packages keep the release aligned; they aren't 22 additional features. The full release and package changelogs contain the technical details.