Zalo Messaging Lands in OpenClaw: Connect Your Agent to Vietnam's Most Popular Chat App
If you're building AI agents for the Vietnamese market, you'll be happy to hear that Zalo support has officially landed in OpenClaw. With over 75 million users, Zalo is Vietnam's dominant messaging platform—and now your OpenClaw agent can connect to it natively.
This feature emerged from a community discussion started by @longmaba, who contributed the initial implementation. The maintainer team responded quickly, turning the contribution into an official channel plugin within days.
Why Zalo Matters
For developers targeting Southeast Asian markets, Zalo is essential:
- 75+ million monthly active users (primarily in Vietnam)
- Telegram-like Bot API with familiar patterns for polling and webhooks
- Business-friendly with official OA (Official Account) integration
- Growing adoption for customer service and automation use cases
If you've been waiting for a way to deploy your AI assistant to Vietnamese users without building a custom integration, this is it.
Setting Up Zalo in OpenClaw
First, you'll need a Zalo Official Account and bot token. Head to bot.zaloplatforms.com to register.
Once you have your bot token, configure OpenClaw:
channels:
zalo:
botToken: "12345689:abc-xyz"
dm:
policy: pairing # or allowlist, openThe token format follows Zalo's standard pattern: appId:secretKey. Tokens don't expire, which simplifies deployment.
What's Supported
Currently working:
- Direct messages (1:1 conversations)
- Text messages (up to 2000 characters)
- Photo attachments
- Stickers
- Full DM security policies (pairing, allowlist, open, disabled)
- Both long-polling and webhook delivery modes
- Standard pairing flow:
clawdbot pairing approve zalo <CODE>
Coming soon:
- Group support (blocked by Zalo's API—they've marked it "coming soon" in their docs)
The Community Story
What's notable about this feature is how fast it went from idea to implementation:
- Jan 13: @longmaba opens the discussion with a working proof-of-concept
- Jan 15: @steipete lands the channel plugin architecture
- Jan 15: Zalo ships as an official plugin
- Jan 17: npm package published
The discussion thread shows genuine community excitement—Vietnamese developers have been waiting for this integration. Comments like "go go" and "very useful" underscore the demand.
This is exactly how open-source should work: a developer scratches their own itch, contributes upstream, and the maintainers respond by making it a first-class feature. If you're considering contributing to OpenClaw, this is a great example of how your work can land quickly.
Quick Start
If you're on the latest OpenClaw (2026.2.x), Zalo is already available. Run:
clawdbot configureNavigate to Channels → Zalo and follow the prompts. Or edit your config directly and restart the gateway.
For manual installation from git (if you're running an older version):
clawdbot plugins install @clawdbot/zaloWhat's Next
Group support is the obvious next step, but that's waiting on Zalo's API. Once their docs update, expect OpenClaw to follow quickly.
If you're in Vietnam or serving Vietnamese users, give Zalo a try. And if you're interested in contributing similar integrations (LINE has been requested, Lark has interest), check out the channel plugins documentation to see how straightforward it is.
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