Using Anon’s Messaging API, you can send and receive messages to and from Instagram for both personal and professional accounts.

To get started, you’ll need a few prerequisites:

• An API Key
• An SDK Client ID
• A JWT for one of your end users that is connected to a user pool
• An account that has been linked through the Link SDK with the JWT

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Request Flow

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Endpoints

View our full API reference here!

URL root is https://svc.staging.anon.com

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Link an Instagram account to Anon

After your user has signed in through the Link SDK, call /messenger/v2/link to activate the Instagram integration. This call should be made from your backend with your secure Anon API key.

POST /messenger/v2/link

BODY

{
  "userId": "the-sub-of-the-JWT",
  "platform": "instagram"
}

HEADERS

Authorization: "Bearer your-jwt-id-token"

RESPONSE

{
  "username": "linkedaccountusername",
  "displayName": "Linked DisplayName"
}

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View the conversations of the connected account

List the conversations that currently exist on the connected Instagram account so that you can send a message.

This endpoint is for convenience. Typically, you’ll rely instead on the webhook we’ll register later in order to get the same information.

GET /messenger/v2/conversations?userId=your-user-id

URL PARAMS

userId=your-user-id

HEADERS

Authorization: "Bearer your-anon-api-key"

RESPONSE

[
  {
    "id": "conversation-id",
    "participants": [
	  "Other InstagramUser"
    ]
  }
]

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Send a message to an Instagram conversation

Use Anon’s API to send a message to one of your user’s existing conversations.

POST /messenger/v2/send-message

BODY

{
  "senderId": "your-user-id",
  "conversationId": "conversation-id",
  "message": "any message you would like to send"
}

HEADERS

Authorization: "Bearer your-anon-api-key"

RESPONSE

200 OK success

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Register your webhook to receive incoming user messages

To receive messages on behalf of your user after linking their account, register your app’s webhook with Anon.

Anon will send a JSON payload to this webhook every time that user receives a message, even if the user and sender have never messaged before. Your webhook should respond with a 200 status upon successful receipt; if it does not, Anon will retry with exponential backoff until it’s acknowledged. This means that if your webhook has downtime, you won’t lose any messages.

POST /messenger/v2/webhook

BODY

{
  "webhook": "https://your-domain.com/path/to/webhook"
}

HEADERS

Authorization: "Bearer your-anon-api-key"

RESPONSE

200 OK success

When the connected user receives a message, you’ll receive the following payload on your registered webhook endpoint:

{
  "conversationId": "conversation-id",
  "message": {
    "text": "Have you heard of Anon?"
  },
  "recipient": {
    "id": "the-user-id-from-earlier",
    "username": "linkedaccountusername"
  },
  "sender": {
    "username": "someotheruser",
    "displayName": "Other InstagramUser"
  },
  "platform": "instagram"
}

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Secure your webhook

In order to ensure that only legitimate Anon traffic is accepted by your webhook, configure it to validate an X-Api-Key header and register that API key with Anon. Anon will include your API key as an X-Api-Key header.

POST /messenger/v2/api-key

BODY

{
  "api-key": "secure token to authenticate webhook calls"
}

HEADERS

Authorization: "Bearer your-anon-api-key"

RESPONSE

200 OK success

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Conclusion

That’s it for getting started with Anon’s Messaging API for Instagram! To find out more, such as how to unlink a user, check out the full Messaging API reference.