A channel is the assistant’s presence on one messaging platform — the bot people
actually write to. Without one, an assistant has flows and contacts but no way to
hear from anyone.
The list
Each channel shows its platform, its webhook hash, whether it is
active, and when it was last updated. Three actions: Edit, Rotate
webhook hash, Delete.
Connecting one
New Channel asks for the platform and its credentials:
Token — the bot token issued by the platform. This is what authorises the
assistant to send.
Secret token — used to verify that an incoming request genuinely came from
the provider and not from someone who guessed the URL. For Telegram this is the
value checked against the X-Telegram-Bot-Api-Secret-Token header.
Active — whether the channel is in service.
Channel settings — free-form key/value pairs for options a particular
platform needs beyond the two above.
Saving a channel contacts the provider and registers the webhook. A token that
does not belong to a real bot makes the save fail — the platform is not storing
a credential and hoping, it is proving the credential works before accepting
it.This is why a channel cannot be prepared in advance and filled in later. Have
the token ready.
The webhook hash
Every channel gets a unique hash, which becomes part of the URL the provider
delivers to. It is not a display value: it is the credential that identifies
this channel, which is why the list shows it in full only to those who may
manage channels.
Rotate webhook hash issues a new one.
Rotating invalidates the URL the provider currently has. Deliveries stop until
the webhook is re-registered on the provider side, and nothing warns you —
messages simply arrive nowhere.Rotate when the hash may have leaked. Do not rotate to “refresh” a channel that
is misbehaving; that is not what it fixes.
Active and deleted
Deactivating stops the channel serving without discarding it: the token, the
hash, and the conversations that came through it all remain. Deleting removes the
channel itself.
Prefer deactivating. A deleted channel takes its identity with it, and
reconnecting later means a new hash and a fresh registration with the provider.
Several channels, one assistant
An assistant can hold more than one channel — the same flows answering on
Telegram and WhatsApp, for instance. Contacts remain per channel: the same person
writing on two platforms is two contacts, because from the assistant’s side two
separate people started talking.