sendChatAction — Botlify Cloud Docs

Use this method when you need to tell the user that something is happening on the bot's side. The status is set for 5 seconds or less (when a message arrives from your bot, Telegram clients clear its typing status). Returns True on success.

Example: The ImageBot needs some time to process a request and upload the image. Instead of sending a text message along the lines of "Retrieving image, please wait...", the bot may use sendChatAction with action = upload_photo. The user will see a "sending photo" status for the bot.

We only recommend using this method when a response from the bot will take a noticeable amount of time to arrive.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`business_connection_id`	String	Optional	Unique identifier of the business connection on behalf of which the action will be sent
`chat_id`	Integer or String	Yes	Unique identifier for the target chat or username of the target bot or supergroup in the format `@username`. Channel chats and channel direct messages chats aren't supported.
`message_thread_id`	Integer	Optional	Unique identifier for the target message thread or topic of a forum; for supergroups and private chats of bots with forum topic mode enabled only
`action`	String	Yes	Type of action to broadcast. Choose one, depending on what the user is about to receive: typing for text messages, upload_photo for photos, record_video or upload_video for videos, record_voice or upload_voice for voice notes, upload_document for general files, choose_sticker for stickers, find_location for location data, record_video_note or upload_video_note for video notes.

Example

PHP — Call sendChatAction on Botlify Cloud

<?php
// ── Botlify Cloud .env — auto-injected, never hardcode secrets ──
$BOT_TOKEN     = getenv('BOT_TOKEN');     // Telegram bot token from @BotFather
$ADMIN_CHAT_ID = getenv('ADMIN_CHAT_ID'); // Your numeric admin Telegram user ID
$BOT_USERNAME  = getenv('BOT_USERNAME');  // Bot username without @

$resp = bot('sendChatAction', [
    'chat_id' => $chatId,
    'action' => 'value',
]);

if ($resp['ok'] ?? false) {
    $result = $resp['result']; // handle the response
}

Botlify Cloud Runtime
Credentials are auto-injected in .env — always load them with getenv(): BOT_TOKEN, ADMIN_CHAT_ID, BOT_USERNAME. Main database: database.db (SQLite, WAL mode). Runtime errors: error.log. Quick test: send to $ADMIN_CHAT_ID. Full details: Runtime Reference.