ProxyAI

Messenger

Messenger and Instagram walkthrough

Two Ways In

Open Configurations → Channels in the dashboard sidebar, and on the Messenger card choose Authorize. The dialog offers two routes:

  • Connect your Facebook Page, with a Connect Page button, one popup: choose your Page, allow access, done. Nothing to copy, nothing to set up on Facebook's side.
  • Advanced, bring your own Meta app below it, the manual route, for anyone who already runs their own app on Facebook's developer site.

The Connect Page button currently reads Coming soon: ProxyAI's own Facebook application is still going through Meta's business verification and review. That is Meta's decision and their timeline. Until it lifts, the Advanced route below works in full.

The Manual Route

This one is genuinely technical, it involves Facebook's developer site rather than ordinary Page settings. If that is not your thing, hand this section to whoever looks after your website, or wait for the one-click connect.

Messenger delivers messages through a Facebook Page, never a personal profile. You will need:

  • A Facebook Page you are an admin of.
  • An app on the Meta Developer site with the Messenger product added.

Two values go into ProxyAI:

  • Page Access Token, on the Meta Developer site: your app → Messenger → Settings → Access Tokens → add your Page and generate one.
  • App Secret, App Settings → Basic → App Secret. ProxyAI uses it to confirm that incoming messages really came from Facebook, so nobody can send fake ones to your bot.

Treat both like passwords. If either gets out, reset it on Meta's side and save the replacement here.

Paste both, then choose Save. ProxyAI checks the values with Facebook and connects your Page.

Point Facebook at ProxyAI

Facebook keeps this setting on the app rather than the Page, so ProxyAI cannot fill it in for you. The dialog shows the two values you need, each with a copy button: Webhook callback URL and Verify token.

Then, once per app:

  1. Meta Developer site → your app → Messenger → Settings → Webhooks.
  2. Choose Add Callback URL.
  3. Paste the callback URL and verify token from the ProxyAI dialog.
  4. Choose Verify and Save. Facebook checks the address straight away, so save in ProxyAI first.
  5. Subscribe to `messages`, and add `messaging_postbacks` if your bot uses buttons.

Let Real Customers In

A new app starts in Development mode, where only people listed on the app, you and anyone you added, get a reply. To serve real customers, complete Meta's App Review for pages_messaging, then switch the app to Live.

Test It

Open your Page in Messenger and send a message. The bot replies in a few seconds.

  • No reply at all, the messages subscription is missing, or the app is still in Development mode and you are messaging from an account that is not on it.
  • Facebook rejects the verification, the verify token must match the ProxyAI dialog exactly, and you must have saved in ProxyAI before pressing Verify and Save.
  • Saving fails with an invalid-token error, the token is for a different Page, or it has expired. Generate a fresh one.

The 24-Hour Rule

Facebook only lets a Page reply within 24 hours of the customer's last message. Bot answers go out immediately, so they are almost never affected. Human replies are: take a conversation over in the agent inbox, answer a day later, and Facebook refuses it, the inbox tells you the window expired and the customer has to write again. This is Meta's rule and nothing on ProxyAI's side can lift it.