Order status desk: one omnichannel AI agent for web chat and phone
An order status demo built to show one AI agent serving web chat and phone calls, with the conversation moving between the two without starting over. It answers questions about order status and declines everything else, on purpose.
Also called omnichannel customer service AI, chat to voice escalation, AI Chat API demo, text and voice on one agent
The claim
The same AgentBase serves two channels. A phone number fetches its SWML. The chat panel on the page reaches it through a gateway that forwards to the AI Chat API, with the agent’s own URL as config_url. The page holds a publishable key and nothing else. The agent has one tool, an order lookup, and a prompt that declines every other topic.
Why it holds
The part worth reading is the switch. A visitor typing in the chat can ask for a call. The gateway ends the text leg and waits for its record, then places an outbound call whose SWML URL carries a one-time nonce. When the platform fetches that SWML, on_swml_request reads the nonce from the query string and the call id from the platform’s own request, and joins the two. Neither value came from the browser, so a page cannot attach itself to someone else’s call. The reverse works too: a call can hand back to text, and the visitor can type into a live call. A deployment is live at https://ai-chat-demo.signalwire.me/demo/.
How it works
Eight recipes in one FastAPI process. The SDK’s ChatGateway is mounted at /chat/ and its HandoffRouter beside it, so the browser derives every route from one configured URL. client.calling.dial places the escalation call with url pointing at the agent. client.calling.ai_message types a visitor’s text into the live call as a user message. client.calling.end closes a leg when the conversation moves. A post_prompt summarises each leg so the next one can pick it up. The chat routes need an API token with the chat scope. The SWML route sits behind basic auth, and the app embeds the pair in the config_url it hands the gateway.
Limitations
This is a clone-and-own application: one process plus the page it serves. It requires signalwire-sdk 3.4.1 or newer for ChatGateway and HandoffRouter, which the pinned 3.0.1 does not carry. The two chat recipes here build the same wire by hand. The repository carries no licence file at the time of writing, which is its owner’s to add.
Handles are HMAC-signed with a key from the environment. Omit it and handles stop verifying across a restart or a second worker.
What to change first
The orders. orders.json and the one lookup tool are the whole domain. The gateway, the handoff routes and the switch do not know what the agent is for.