channel-setup

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

How accounts, senders and channels relate in Zavu - what you connect, what bills, and how to find the sender to send from.

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Sourcezavudev/zavu-skills

Added on2026-08-22

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add zavudev/zavu-skills channel-setup

SKILL.md Content

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Channel Setup

When to Use

Use this skill when wiring a freshly connected channel (WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Messenger, email, phone number) into code, or when deciding which sender ID to pass to the API.

The two-layer model

Zavu has two objects that beginners often conflate:

Layer	What it is	Where it lives
Account	The connection to a provider: a WhatsApp Business Account, a Facebook Page, an Instagram account, a Telegram bot, an email domain, a phone number	Connected in the dashboard (Accounts, Phone Numbers) or via partner invitations
Sender	The API handle that ROUTES accounts: what you pass as `Zavu-Sender` , what carries the webhook and the AI agent	`GET /v1/senders`

Billing: accounts are what you pay for (a WhatsApp account, a channel connection, a phone number). Senders are free — they are the view that groups your accounts under one sending identity.

Connecting always yields a ready sender. When an account is connected and no sender references it, Zavu creates one automatically, named after the account (the WhatsApp verified name, the Page name, the @username). The first sender of a project becomes the default. Partner-invitation connects have always worked this way; every connect surface now does.

Finding the sender to send from

GET /v1/senders

is the answer to "what can I send with, and from where?". Each sender's

channels

array is the source of truth for capability — computed from its actual configuration, not inferred:

json

{
  "id": "sender_12345",
  "name": "Acme Store",
  "channels": ["whatsapp", "sms", "voice"],
  "isDefault": true
}

An empty
```
channels
```
array means the sender cannot send anything yet (a phone number alone does not enable SMS).
Omit
```
Zavu-Sender
```
to use the project's default sender.
To target a specific one, pass its ID as a header inside the send params object:
```
'Zavu-Sender': "sender_12345"
```
.

Per-channel wiring

You connected...	The sender...	Send with
WhatsApp (embedded signup or invitation)	auto-created, `channels` includes `whatsapp` once the account is active	`channel: "whatsapp"`
Messenger Page / Instagram account	auto-created, named after the Page/@username	`channel: "messenger"` / `"instagram"`
Telegram bot	attached via `POST /v1/senders/{senderId}/telegram` (bot token from @BotFather)	`channel: "telegram"`
Email domain (verified)	attach with `emailAddress` on sender create/update	`channel: "email"`
Nothing yet (zero-setup start)	`enableSmsOneway: true` on `POST /v1/senders` or `PATCH /v1/senders/{senderId}` — no number, no credential, active immediately; recipients cannot reply	`channel: "sms_oneway"`
Phone number	route it to a sender ( `PATCH /v1/phone-numbers/{id}` with `senderId` ) — that is what turns SMS on; add `enableVoice` for calls	`channel: "sms"` / `"voice"`

One sender can carry several channels at once — that is the point: one

Zavu-Sender

, every channel.

Constraints

A sender belongs to one project; an account is routed by at most one sender.
Webhooks and AI agents are configured per sender, so they apply to every channel that sender carries.
Free plans include two connection slots (one can be a WhatsApp account); paid plans add connections at a monthly fee per connection. Creating senders never costs anything.