Zalo bot

How to connect a Zalo bot to Lalexi: create it in Zalo Bot Creator on your phone and paste the token.

Zalo is connected as a bot: you create it in the Zalo app and hand Lalexi its token. Personal Zalo accounts are not supported.

What you need

The Zalo app on your phone: a bot can only be created there.
A verified Zalo account — without confirming your identity no bot is issued.
A free slot in the connection limit.

Create the bot

On your phone open zalo.me/s/botcreator — the link launches Zalo Bot Creator inside the Zalo app.
Follow the instructions on screen. If the account has not been verified yet, Zalo asks you to confirm your identity — do that and come back.
Give the bot a name. Zalo requires it to start with the word Bot — for example, Bot LalexiDemo.
The Zalo Bot Manager account then sends you the bot and its token in a chat. The token is a long string like 1234567890123456789:AbCd....

The bot-creator link only works on a phone: it opens the app, and a desktop browser offers to install Zalo instead. Already have a bot? Its token is in the Zalo Bot Manager chat, in the message about its creation.

How to connect

Copy the token from the Zalo Bot Manager chat.
In Lalexi open Settings → Inboxes, press Add Inbox, pick the Zalo Bot tile and press Connect — a tab with a form opens.
Paste the token and press Connect.
Once it says "Connected", close the tab and return to Lalexi: the inbox appears with the Connected status.

Pasting a Zalo bot token

The token is full access to the bot: whoever holds it can write as the bot. Lalexi stores it encrypted and uses it only to send and receive messages. If it leaks, reissue it in Zalo Bot Manager and connect the bot again.

What the bot can and cannot do

These limits are Zalo's own, not ours:

It only answers people who wrote first — a bot cannot open a conversation. So the channel is unavailable in New message, campaigns and warm-up.
No chat list and no history. A conversation appears in Lalexi on its own with its first incoming message; anything from before the connection is not pulled in. There is nothing to configure in sync settings.
One-to-one chats only; the bot ignores group chats.
Attachments are limited: it sends images and .aac voice messages, anything else is rejected with an error right in the chat.
A long reply is split into 2000-character parts.
Zalo gives no phone number for the person on the other side, so their contact is not merged with a WhatsApp contact — they are separate people in the contact list.

On Zalo's free tier the platform's caps apply: at most three bots, 50 subscribers per bot and 3000 messages a month.

If something goes wrong

Symptom	What to do
`zalo.me/s/botcreator` doesn't open the bot creator	Open it on a phone that has Zalo installed. In a desktop browser it leads to the app store.
The bot creator asks to confirm your identity	That's Zalo's own rule: bots are only issued to verified accounts. Pass the verification as prompted on screen, then create the bot again.
Zalo rejects the bot name	The name must start with the word `Bot` — for example, `Bot LalexiDemo`.
The form says the link is no longer valid	The token-entry link lives for 30 minutes. Go back to Add Inbox and pick Zalo Bot again.
The token isn't accepted	Copy it from the Zalo Bot Manager chat in full, with no stray spaces.
The bot is connected but there are no conversations	That's expected until a customer writes to it first.
A file wouldn't send	Zalo only takes images and `.aac` voice messages; other formats are rejected.