Agent Test Chat

frontline agents chat talks to an agent the same way the in-app Overview / Playground does: it runs the agent and its active or draft flow. Use it to validate flows end-to-end after building or deploying.

This is a test channel, not production LiveChat/WhatsApp traffic.

Prerequisites

• Authenticate with frontline auth login <api-key>.
• Select an agent: frontline agents use <agent-id> (or pass --agent-id per command).
• The agent should have a flow with a Start node configured.

Commands

Open a new test conversation

frontline agents chat

Opens a conversation and runs the agent's Start flow (no user message).

Send a message (new or continued)

# New conversation + first message
frontline agents chat --message "Hello"

# Continue an existing conversation
frontline agents chat --message "My name is Juan" --conversation-id 123

Flag	Description
--agent-id <id>	Agent ID (defaults to active agent)
--message <text>	Message to send
--conversation-id <id>	Continue an existing test conversation (requires --message)
--contact-id <id>	Link the conversation to a People record

Close a test conversation

frontline agents chat close <conversationId>

Output

Default (JSON, scripting-friendly):

{
  "ok": true,
  "data": {
    "conversation_id": 123,
    "messages": [...]
  }
}

The CLI normalizes all success responses to { ok: true, data: … }. Use jq '.data.conversation_id' and jq '.data.messages'.

With --pretty, stdout is human-readable: conversation_id plus the latest assistant message (no JSON envelope).

vs other chat commands

Command	Purpose
frontline agents chat	Test an agent — runs active/draft flow (Playground)
max chat / max "…"	Chat with the Max AI assistant (not an agent flow)
frontline agents conversations list/get	Read production conversation transcripts (no flow execution)

Typical workflow

frontline agents use <agent-id>
frontline agents chat --message "I need help with my order"
# Note conversation_id from output: jq '.data.conversation_id'
frontline agents chat --message "Order #12345" --conversation-id <id>
frontline agents chat close <id>

After editing a flow, re-run frontline agents chat to validate the updated graph before deploying.

Troubleshooting

Error	Cause
agent_not_selected	No active agent — run frontline agents use <id> or pass --agent-id
missing_message	--conversation-id requires --message to continue

See also

• frontline-agents skill — list, inspect, and manage agents
• agent-builder skill — create and deploy agents step by step
• max-chat skill — chat with Max (different product surface)
• CLI reference: agents chat