API reference
Contacts
/contacts
A contact is the person who receives messages. Contacts are linked to subjects through /links. In the Standard lens a contact is, for example, “Hawa Kollie”.
GET/contactsList · ?q ?phone_e164 ?external_refPOST/contactsCreateGET/contacts/{contact_id}Readshown →PATCH/contacts/{contact_id}Update · attributes replaced wholePOST/contacts/{contact_id}/deactivateDeactivate · no delete
GETRead a contact
Requires contacts:read. Returns the contact as stored, whatever its status.
Path parameters
contact_iduuid · required
The contact id.
Returns
200 with the contact. 404 not_found if the id is not in this instance.
Response body
One contact: the same fields in every pack. Press Response on the sample to see one whole.
FieldTypeDescription
iduuid
tenant_iduuidThe instance.
external_refstring | nullYour own id, as you sent it. It is the only exact key a contact with no phone number has.
namestring
roleaudience | staffSet when the contact is made and never changed.
phone_e164string | nullNormalised to E.164, whatever shape it arrived in. null where the instance takes contacts with no phone number: then the email is the address and external_ref is the key.
wa_phone_e164string | nullnull means WhatsApp goes to phone_e164, where there is one. It goes beside a phone number and never in place of one, so a contact with no phone number has no WhatsApp number either.
emailstring | nullLower-cased. Not unique: two people may share one. It is the one way to reach a contact with no phone number.
channel_prefsms | whatsapp | emailUsed where a send follows preferences. email means the email goes in place of the phone message, unless the instance keeps the phone for that kind of notice. With no phone number there is nothing else, so a contact without one is always email.
wa_reachableboolean | nullLearned, not set: null is untried, false is a send that came back unreachable, true is one that landed.
sms_reachableboolean | nullThe same, for SMS.
last_inbound_atdatetime | nullWhen this contact last wrote in. Anchors WhatsApp's 24-hour reply window.
wa_opt_out_atdatetime | nullWhen this contact wrote STOP on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is skipped from then on; SMS is not. START clears it.
languagestring
attributesobjectShaped by the instance's pack's contact_schema.Varies by pack
statusactive | inactive | blocked | opt_outOnly active contacts are ever messaged.
created_atdatetime
updated_atdatetime
On failure the body is { error, code } instead.