Deep Chat is a open source web component that drops a chat widget into any web page. The Deep Chat connector turns a RedBot flow into the backend of that widget.
Unlike every other platform in RedBot, there is nothing to sign up for: no external service, no web-hook to register with a third party, no access token, no public HTTPS address. The widget talks straight to Node-RED. That makes it the fastest way to get a working chatbot — and the only platform you can develop entirely offline.
That's it. You can skip ngrok, tunnels and certificates — they are needed by the web-hook platforms (WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram web-hook mode), not by this one.
Three nodes, wired left to right:
[Deep Chat Receiver] → [Message] → [Deep Chat Sender]
All three are in the RedBot Platforms palette category.
Double-click the Deep Chat Receiver node, then click the pencil next to Bot configuration (development) to create a new configuration node.
The only field you must fill in
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Bot ID | a slug identifying this bot, e.g. my-bot |
The Bot ID becomes part of every endpoint the connector mounts, so it must be unique across the Node-RED instance and URL-safe (letters, digits, dashes).
Everything else, and when to touch it
| Field | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Bot Name | — | label shown in the Node-RED editor and the startup banner |
| Connect mode | http |
http (request/response) or websocket (the server pushes at any time) — see §6 |
| Intro message | — | first bubble the widget shows before the visitor types anything (client side only, the flow never sees it) |
| Accept files | on | let the visitor attach files (HTTP mode only) |
| Heartbeat | 30000 |
ms between ping/pong sweeps on a socket, 0 disables — WebSocket mode only |
| Timeout | 20000 |
ms an inbound request is held open waiting for the flow — HTTP mode only |
| Collect window | 400 |
ms to wait for further flow messages after the last one — HTTP mode only |
| Public URL | — | absolute base of your Node-RED, needed so media links work when the widget lives on another host |
| Allowed origins | — | comma-separated origins allowed to talk to the bot; empty means same origin only |
| Deep Chat bundle | jsDelivr [email protected] |
override to self-host the widget script |
| Context | — | context provider for the conversation (as in every other platform) |
| Debug | off | log inbound/outbound messages |
| Store messages / Inspect messages / Mission Control / Chatbot ID | — | standard RedBot/Mission Control options, identical to the other platforms |
Deploy. The startup banner in the Node-RED log lists the endpoints the bot mounted.