API news & updates

The icons for developer apps will now have squared off edges rather than a circular design. This new look aligns with our updated design principles and brings more consistency across the app.You can set the icon in the Settings tab of your developer app:And you’ll see it in Front in places like the list of developer apps and in the rule, macro, and other workflow menus where you select to use a feature from your developer app, such as a channel or app request (Connector).  

Check out our new video walkthrough for how to use Connectors to process Stripe refunds directly from Front! Make sure to subscribe to the Connectors space for more examples!

We are thrilled to feature recent community contributions to our sample code! Read on to learn what sample apps and code your peers have recently shared with the community. MCP serverMany thanks to ​@zqush for going above and beyond to provide an example of a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Front! An MCP server is a standardized way to connect AI models to external data sources and tools, enabling them to access real-time information and perform tasks securely.  PHP code snippetsThank you ​@jross for contributing PHP versions of common Front code snippets!

We've just released an AI prompt file that lets you scaffold Front plugins using any AI coding agent—Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Cursor, and more.Simply describe what you want your plugin to do, and the AI generates a working plugin that follows best practices, correctly uses the Front Plugin SDK, and includes built-in debugging tools. What used to take hours of learning our SDK now takes about 10 minutes.Why this matters:Speed - Get from idea to working plugin faster than ever Correctness - The AI handles Front-specific patterns and boilerplate automatically Accessibility - Lower barrier to entry—you don't need to be a Front SDK expert to get started Best practices - Ensures plugins follow established patterns for Front data models and context handling from day one Debugging - Built-in tools show exactly what's

Solving API Timeouts with Connectors + Application TriggersWe've published a new workflow tutorial that shows how to handle a common integration challenge: what happens when your external system takes longer to process than Front's API timeout allows?The scenario: You trigger an API call from Front (creating an order, generating a document, processing a complex workflow), the record is created successfully in your external system, but Front times out before receiving the response. Your downstream automations never fire because Front never got the critical data back, such as the new order’s unique identifier.The solution uses a callback pattern combining:

We’re excited to introduce application channel message templates in Front, designed to streamline your messaging workflows by enabling template synchronization directly from your external services. This feature offers a robust solution for maintaining consistency and efficiency in your communication channels, providing a seamless way to sync message templates created in external services (such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Google, etc.) into Front for use with your application channels.A WhatsApp message template synced into a Front application channel Application message templates are supported through two new API endpoints:

Front now sends 3 new event types:ticket_status_update—sent when a ticket changes statuses. topic_identified—sent when a new topic is identified by Front AI.  macro_triggered—sent when a teammate runs a macro.Refer to the Events topic in our Developer Portal to learn how to use these events. We hope these new events are useful to your development! Please let us know if you have any feedback.  

We are thrilled to announce the implementation of a new rate limiting system that offers a more sophisticated and user-friendly approach to managing API requests. We will start rolling this new rate limiter out on Monday, September 22nd, with the aim of updating all companies by Friday, September 26th. Our improved rate limiter provides the following key enhancements: 1. Removing the penalty for 429 rate-limited requestsIn the past, hitting the rate limit meant that requests that returned a 429 response informing you of the breach also counted against your limit, which could result in compounding and unnecessarily long windows before your limit was reset. With the new system, 429 rate-limited requests will not count towards your rate limit, making it clearer to understand when your new rate limit window will replenish.2. Burst Limit for Occasional Traffic SpikesThe introduction of a burst limit provides

We're excited to announce that the Front UI Kit is now fully compatible with React 19! This update ensures that our components and Storybook are aligned with the latest major React revision, allowing you to take advantage of React 19's new features and improvements. To update run npm install @frontapp/ui-kit@latest or yarn add @frontapp/ui-kit@latestMake sure you are using React 19 before upgrading the Front UI Kit React 19 introduces several enhancements that improve app performance, developer experience, and component flexibility. Our team has diligently tested and updated our UI Kit to ensure smooth integration and optimal functionality with this major React release. For those who aren’t familiar, the Front UI Kit is a set of React components that hel

This change contains a deprecation of the external_conversation_id property in the metadata object.You can now reply to specific messages through application channels.{ "type": "message", "payload": { [MESSAGE BODY] }, "metadata": { "external_conversation_ids": string[], // External identifier of the conversations related to this message. "referenced_message_external_id": string // (Optional) ID of the message being referenced as a direct reply }}As part of this change, we are introducing two new properties in the metadata object used when creating or replying to messages in a channel:external_conversation

You can now configure servers with variable subdomains. This enables your apps to connect to APIs with customer-specific endpoints (e.g. Salesforce, Shopify, Netsuite) or support different regions or production environments. During setup, the developer specifies what part of the origin is a variable, and then during installation of your app, Front admins supply the specific subdomain value. Happy coding!

We’ve added ticketing concepts to the Plugin SDK so you can easily view and manage conversations for companies that have this feature enabled. The new method and data model updates should help navigate Front ticketing within your plugins without having to call the Core API. To grab the latest version, run npm install @frontapp/plugin-sdk@^1.9.0 --save or bump your package version manually. If using Yarn, run yarn upgrade @frontapp/plugin-sdk@^1.9.0. The Plugin SDK now offers the following additions:A new listTicketStatuses method that returns the ticket statuses available for the company. The Conversation model in the Plugin SDK

Build more flexible Connectors by adding multiple requests to your configuration—all within a more intuitive visual interface.  We’ve redesigned how you build Connectors in Front, moving from a rigid step-by-step setup to a flexible flow builder. This new visual interface gives you greater control when connecting Front to external APIs and systems using application requests and application objects.With the new visual flow builder, you can now add multiple requests within a single Connector configuration. Whether you're retrieving data from different endpoints or chaining act

You should now see a fresh look and feel to the UI when you navigate to Settings > Developers. These changes were made to help you manage features on your developer apps more quickly. The Apps list now displays the features associated with each of your apps:When you click into an app, you will see that the Features tab now lists all the app’s features so you can easily manage them without having to click into each feature card like you did in the old experience.The OAuth tab has been moved into the Features list. It was previously a top-level tab. When you click Add

You can now reply to specific comments using the Core API. Comment replies visually indicate which comment is being responded to, helping users follow the conversation. This feature has been available in the Front UI for a long time, but is now available via the API. Use the Add comment reply endpoint to create a comment reply. Happy coding!

The is_spammer property is no longer part of the Contacts response. This property was deprecated a few years ago but is now fully removed from the response object. No issues are expected, but if you notice any, please leave us a comment or reach out to our Support team.

Application triggers allow you to execute workflows in Front in response to events that occur in external systems. For example, you might want to re-open conversations in Front anytime an order changes status. When the event occurs in your order management system, you send Front an event payload identifying the trigger for the change of order status. The event payload would also identify an application object, likely through the link to the order in your management system. Once the trigger is received, any conversations that have a related application object attached for the order would reopen based on a rule. Your rule could also pull additional properties from the trigger's event payload, such as the new status, and make that available through a dynamic variable. The additional data from the property could apply a comment or tag or other action in Front based on the new status. To learn how to use application triggers, refer to our Developer Portal:

You can now open a sidebar plugin from URLs found in Front messages or comments. The format for doing so is:Syntaxhttps://<Front base domain>/open-sidebar-plugin/<App UID>Examplehttps://app.frontapp.com/open-sidebar-plugin/40a4eae201a760d1 Pass custom properties to your pluginYou can pass custom properties in the URL as query string parameters, which will then become available to your plugin’s context in the EntryPoint object.https://app.frontapp.com/open-sidebar-plug

Going forward, Front will disable application webhooks that do not respond successfully. After three failed attempts, the webhook will be disabled and Front will stop sending events to your URL. We expect this change will mostly impact webhooks set up during development that are no longer used. However, if an active webhook experiences downtime and is disabled, you can go to the Webhook feature of your developer app and click Update to re-verify and re-enable it.

Hello Front developers, If you retrieve a conversation through the API, the response will now return a 301 redirect if that conversation has been merged into another one. Previously, the API returned a 404. This change makes it easier to keep track of conversations after they have been merged. The change applies to any API endpoint that interacts with a specific conversation:Get conversation Update conversation Update conversation assignee

Connectors provide a no-code means of making API calls to external systems and can also transform URLs or strings found in comments or messages into structured objects that are easy to access from a conversation in Front. Connectors come in two flavors:Application objects (previously known as “dynamic objects”)—these connectors identify matching patterns (such as order IDs) in Front conversations or comments and automatically attach a structured object to the conversation that contains information about and a link to the external resource. Application requests—these connectors make API calls to external systems to provide a no-code method for building integrations. These requests can also be leveraged in rules and macros. Currently, only GET requests are supported, but additional methods will be available soon to allow you to push data to external systems.  If you are currently using dynamic objec

Front has just released an official Front Chat Android SDK that makes it easier than ever to install Front Chat in your native Android apps. Visit our Developer Portal to learn how to install and use the SDK. The setup guide includes a link to the SDK’s GitHub repo.

You can now send attachments in Connectors! To do so, set the Content Type to multipart/form-data when building the request and include the attachment data in the body.Sending attachments through Connectors enables use cases for when you want to send files to external services. For example, a Front teammate using the JIRA Connector could run a macro to upload an image to a JIRA task describing an issue they are dealing with. Watch a video of the example use casePasscode: Pi%gEU9L

Front has just released an official Front Chat iOS SDK that makes it easier than ever to install Front Chat in your native iOS apps. Visit our Developer Portal to learn how to install and use the SDK. The setup guide includes a link to the SDK’s GitHub repo. P.S. An Android version of the SDK is coming soon...