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Paige Dev lets you connect your personal WhatsApp number directly to a project so you can test your bot exactly as your users will experience it — no staging environment needed. When your phone is linked, any message you send to your bot’s number is processed live by your bot code, giving you immediate feedback on how it behaves.
1

Open your project

From the Paige dashboard, select the project you want to test.
2

Go to Paige Dev

In the project sidebar, click Paige Dev. You’ll see your current link status.
3

Link your number

Click Link my number and follow the prompt to associate your WhatsApp phone number with this project. Once linked, your number is active for this project only.
Each phone number can only be linked to one project at a time. If you want to test a different project, unlink from the current one first.

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Send test messages

Once your number is linked, open WhatsApp on your phone and send a message to your bot’s number. The message flows through your bot code in real time — you’ll see a response just as any user would.

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Try a test template on your linked phone

Once you’ve linked a phone, the Paige Dev card has a Try now button (tooltip: Try it on your phone). Click it and Paige delivers a pre-built Meta template — with an embedded flow-trigger button — straight to your linked WhatsApp number, so you can verify template rendering and flow buttons end-to-end without doing a full deploy.
  • The send is rate-limited to 5 successful sends per linked number, per rolling 24 hours. Failed sends are recorded so you can retry without exhausting the limit on an error.
  • If the test template hasn’t been configured on your environment, the button shows a clear error instead of failing silently.
Use Try now when you want to confirm that a flow opens correctly from a tappable button — it bypasses the need to start an outbound conversation manually.

Test the happy path

Walk through the primary use case your bot is designed for to confirm the core flow works end to end.

Test edge cases

Send unexpected inputs — empty messages, long strings, emojis, or out-of-order replies — to see how your bot handles them.

Check conversation state

If your bot stores state between messages (for example, multi-step flows), test that the state carries over correctly across multiple turns.

Use logs alongside testing

Open the Logs panel while testing to see console.log output from your bot code in real time. See Execution logs for details.

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Programmatic testing with the Code Agent

If you’re working with the Code Agent to build or modify your bot, you can ask it to run a simulated test. The agent sends a message to your bot programmatically and observes the response — without you needing to pick up your phone. To trigger a programmatic test, describe the scenario you want to test in the chat. For example:
“Test what happens when a user sends ‘hello’ as their first message.”
The agent will run the test, show you the result, and can iterate on your code based on what it finds.
Programmatic testing is especially useful for regression checks — ask the agent to re-run the same test after making code changes to confirm nothing broke.
When you’re done testing, you can unlink your phone from the project. Go to Paige Dev in the project sidebar and click Unlink. Your bot will continue operating normally for real users — only your personal test link is removed.
While your phone is linked, all messages you send to the bot number are processed as real bot interactions. Avoid sending messages you wouldn’t want logged or acted on.