Receive Message

Normalizes inbound Gmail, Slack, Telegram, Discord, or generic webhook payloads. Unwraps the { contentType, payload, … } content wrapper first, so the message/sender/channel paths are read from the body itself — the same bare body a deployed host hands this node. Without that every configured path missed, and the node routed to Ignored while the run still reported success. The verify token and the header-level auth are still checked against the raw input, where the request headers live.

Finding it in the library

Search the builder's node library for Receive Message (it lives under Input). A single click opens the in-editor docs panel shown here — description, ports, and every property, without leaving the canvas. Double-click (or drag) to add it to the workflow.

Wired up in the builder

Receive Message in a real, runnable flow — captured live from the Studio editor, exactly as it looks on your canvas. This is the same workflow used for the example input & output below.

How it’s configured

The node’s settings as the builder shows them — every field laid out with real values. In the Studio these are edited on the node: click the chevron on the divider under its ports to open them.

Ports

This is a trigger — it starts runs and takes no input wire.

Ports are the node’s contract with its neighbours. In the editor a port label renders bold when wired and italic when optional; ◈ ports accept attachment carriers rather than data wires.

How data flows through it

As a trigger, Receive Message starts runs — it takes no input wire. What it emits is the request wrapper: the event’s body becomes the payload, and the wrapper carries the event metadata around it (for an HTTP-style trigger that’s headers.*, request.method, request.path and query). Downstream nodes consume the content — the wrapper is unwrapped at each node boundary, and expression roots like {{ headers.x }} still resolve against the wrapper when you need the metadata. See Runs & run data for the envelope model.

Expressions in the config

String-typed properties accept {{ }} expressions evaluated against the incoming item at run time — e.g. {{ $json.customer.email }}. On this node that’s verifyToken, authUser, authPassword, authHeaderName, authHeaderValue, authToken, jwtSecret, jwtPublicKey, ipAllowlist. JSON- and code-typed fields never interpolate — they are passed through literally.

Build it with AI

Every node in this reference is reachable through Flowdrome’s AI Copilot and the MCP tools — say what you want, and the graph surgery happens server-side. Node types resolve fuzzily, so the catalog label (Receive Message) works as well as the exact type id (input.receive-message).

In the Copilot panel (or any connected AI):

create a workflow that starts with receive message and logs the result

As a step in a create_chain_workflow call:

{"type":"Receive Message","config":{}}

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:4800/mcp -H "content-type: application/json" -d '{ "jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": "1", "method": "tools/call", "params": { "name": "add_node", "arguments": { "workflowId": "<id>", "type": "Receive Message" } } }'

Example input & output

Captured from a real test run of the workflow above — this is what the Runs view shows after pressing Test workflow.

On this run the node emitted on port message.

Input — what the node received

Output — what the node produced

Property reference

Every setting, with its type and default — the same fields shown configured above.

Related nodes

The rest of the Input group — the same folder you’d scan in the editor’s library.

• HTTP Trigger Serves HTTP endpoints and starts the workflow with the request
• Telegram Trigger Starts the workflow for every Telegram bot update — long-polls getUpdates (default) or serves a secret-token-v
• WhatsApp Trigger Starts the workflow when a WhatsApp message arrives (Meta Cloud API webhook)
• Slack Trigger Starts the workflow when a Slack event arrives (Events API)
• Discord Trigger Starts the workflow when a Discord message arrives — via the Gateway WebSocket (real-time messages) or an inte
• WebSocket Trigger Accepts a persistent WebSocket connection; each inbound message starts the workflow, and data sent to its feed
• Inject Injects static manual test payloads as workflow input.
• Manual Trigger Starts the workflow when run manually, passing your run/test data forward (empty item by default).

This page is generated from the node registry by gen-node-docs.mjs on every site build — ports, properties, defaults and visibility rules cannot drift from the code. The screenshots and example data are captured from a live Flowdrome by npm run shots:nodes and npm run gen:examples.