Core Concepts¶

Welcome to Wappa's core concepts! These guides explain how Wappa works under the hood and help you build sophisticated conversational applications.

What You'll Learn¶

This section covers everything you need to understand Wappa's architecture and capabilities:

🏗️ Architecture - How Wappa is structured and why it works so well

🔄 Event System - The heart of Wappa - how messages become events

💾 State Management - Keep track of conversations and user data

💬 Messaging - Everything you can send to users (and how)

⚙️ Configuration - Settings, environment variables, and customization

How Wappa Works¶

Wappa follows a simple but powerful pattern:

# 1. Messages come in as webhooks
WhatsApp → Wappa Webhook → Event Dispatcher

# 2. Events trigger your handlers  
Event Dispatcher → Your Event Handler → Business Logic

# 3. Handlers send responses
Business Logic → Messenger → WhatsApp → User

That's the entire flow. Everything else is just making this pattern more powerful with state management, interactive messages, media handling, and plugins.

Start Here¶

Just built your first app? → Read Architecture to understand what you just created

Ready for interactive messages? → Jump to Messaging to see all the cool stuff you can send

Building complex workflows? → Check out Event System and State Management

Want to customize everything? → Explore Configuration for advanced setup

Understanding the concepts makes everything click! 💡