- How do I install and set up sevenspan/laravel-whatsapp in a Laravel app?
- Install it with Composer using composer require sevenspan/laravel-whatsapp. Laravel's package auto-discovery registers the service provider and facade, so no manual registration is normally needed. Publish the config file with php artisan vendor:publish and fill in your WhatsApp Business Cloud API credentials. Setup is a five-minute job, but treat the package as a thin outbound wrapper, not a full WhatsApp integration platform.
- Which PHP and Laravel versions does laravel-whatsapp support?
- The exact constraints live in the package's composer.json, and you should read that file before committing to anything. Version caps for PHP and the illuminate components are the fastest pass or fail check for your stack. If your application runs a recent Laravel release, confirm the package has not been left behind on older framework and PHP bounds.
- How do I configure WhatsApp Cloud API credentials for this package?
- After publishing the config file, supply your access token and phone number ID through environment variables referenced by that config. Those credentials come from your Meta WhatsApp Business app in the Cloud API dashboard. Remember that credentials and template approval both live in Meta's ecosystem, so the package config only covers the outbound call path.
- How do I send a WhatsApp text message from a Laravel controller?
- Resolve the WhatsApp facade or inject the bound service and chain the fluent message builder to set the recipient and the text body, then dispatch the send. The builder keeps call sites short instead of hand-crafting JSON payloads. Because the facade sits over the Cloud API, the message still has to respect Meta's 24-hour customer service window rules, which are a WhatsApp policy concern rather than something the package enforces.
- Can I queue WhatsApp messages so they send in the background?
- Yes, the package is designed to be queue friendly, so you can dispatch sends from a queued job instead of blocking the request cycle. That keeps slow HTTP calls to the Graph API out of your user-facing latency. Combine it with retries and failure handling in your job class, since API errors and rate limits are your responsibility.
- How do I send WhatsApp messages through Laravel notifications?
- The package integrates with Laravel's notification system, so you can add a WhatsApp channel to a notification class alongside mail or database channels. Each notification defines its recipient and message content in the usual toWhatsapp style method. This lets you reuse existing notification routing logic instead of calling the API directly from controllers.
- How do I send a WhatsApp template message with dynamic components?
- Version 1.3.1 added support for dynamic components, which most likely lets you assemble header and body parameters at call time rather than passing a fixed payload shape. Template messages matter because they are the only type allowed outside the 24-hour service window. The changelog is a single line, so verify whether the package builds valid Cloud API component objects, validates parameter counts against the approved template, or simply passes your array through. Treat it as partial template support, not template management.
- Does laravel-whatsapp support media messages like images and documents?
- The package advertises text, media, and template messages through the fluent builder, so sending an image, document, or similar attachment should be a matter of pointing at a media ID or URL. Media handling on the WhatsApp Cloud API still requires uploading assets or hosting them at a public URL first. Test the exact payload shape against the Graph API version you are targeting before relying on it.
- Does this package handle inbound webhooks, delivery statuses, and opt-in state?
- No. It focuses on outbound sending, and it does not own inbound webhook handling, template lifecycle governance, message status callbacks, opt-in tracking, or per-tenant routing. You need to build those pieces yourself, typically with your own webhook controller and a queue for processing events. Plan for that work before you assume the package covers your full WhatsApp integration.
- Is sevenspan/laravel-whatsapp actively maintained and safe for production?
- Be cautious. The repository has a very small adoption footprint, and the 1.3.1 release arrived after a long dormancy with a one-line changelog that mentions only dynamic component support. Nothing in that release suggests the hard-coded Graph API version was updated, which is the highest-severity risk: a retired API version can make sends fail outright. Check whether the repository is archived, read the diff between releases, and consider forking the code rather than depending on a maintainer commitment that has not been demonstrated.