How to connect local WebChat client to a bot running locally?

Question

Is it possible to talk to my bot via WebChat like I'm doing it via Emulator, Without registering and publishing the bot on Azure?

Answer 1

You will need to register the bot in the BotFramework portal and enable the WebChat channel. Registering the bot doesn't mean that the bot will be published to the bot directory. You don't need to publish the bot to using it.

Also, you don't need to publish the bot in Azure to use it. Instead, you could use ngrok to create a secure tunnels to localhost.

You can check the following links:

• https://docs.botframework.com/en-us/node/builder/guides/core-concepts/#debugging-locally-using-ngrok
• https://robinosborne.co.uk/2016/09/19/debugging-botframework-locally-using-ngrok/

Update 21/12

Just remembered that since the WebChat is now open source, you might have an option to run it locally as described in the README.md. Below the relevant portion of the docs.