How can I sendText from human participant to agent participant

Server SDKs
1

I’m using Whatsapp Connector so that whenever a user sends a message during the call, I want that message the user sent via whatsapp chat to be sent to the agent using sendText ( Sending text | LiveKit Documentation ).

This sending of text is triggered by a webhook. So when I receive a specific webhook, I’m triggering to send the text to the agent. Here is how the backend server is sending the text to the agent.

def create_room_admin_token(room: str) -> str:
  token = api.AccessToken(os.getenv('LIVEKIT_API_KEY'),
                          os.getenv('LIVEKIT_API_SECRET')) \
      .with_identity("Token-Generator") \
      .with_name("Kamal") \
      .with_grants(api.VideoGrants(
          room_join=True,
          room_admin=True,
          can_publish=True,
          can_subscribe=True,
          room=room)).to_jwt()

  return token

async def publish_whatsapp_message_to_room(
  content: PublishWhatsappMessage
):

    room = rtc.Room()

    try:
        # Connect backend participant to the room
        await room.connect(
            os.getenv("LIVEKIT_URL"),
            create_room_admin_token(content.room_name),
        )

        # Publish text message to lk.chat
        info = await room.local_participant.send_text(
            content.message_text,
            topic="lk.chat",
        )
        return f"Sent text with stream ID: {info.stream_id}"

    finally:
        await room.disconnect()

In my testing, I have seen that the text is actually being sent because I see this in my logs:

“Sent text with stream ID: cee1a037-5e51-4552-961e-ed5563a8add8”

But I have noticed that the text is being sent from the agent to the human. I have noticed this when testing this in agent console. In my case i sent a tracking number. If you check the image below, it shows that the image is sent from the agent to the human.

Screenshot 2026-08-26 at 02.04.16
Screenshot 2026-08-26 at 02.04.162514×1594 298 KB

Because of this, the agent doesn’t know that it has received text and can’t use the text for further action.

I would like to know, how can I specify that when sending text, send the text from the human participant to the agent participant.

2

Hey Kamal,

The issue is room.local_participant. is not your WhatsApp participant, it will be a different participant since it used a different token.

The best solution I believe would be to still send the message with send_text but use a different topic name. Then register in your Agent for that new stream and inject it into the conversation using generate_reply: Text and transcriptions | LiveKit Documentation.

3

Thanks Darryn for the guidance.

After further testing, I have felt that using SendData (Room service API | LiveKit Documentation) is the reliable way to send external data to the livekit agent to inform the agent about updates. I’m using session.generate_reply to inject the conversation.