Reactions and Replies

Both react and reply live directly on an incoming message. They no-op silently on platforms that don’t support the feature — no try/catch required. Spectrum also exports first-class reaction(), reply(), and unsend() content builders that you can pass directly to space.send(...) — the sugar methods on message delegate through the same send pipeline.

Reactions

Sugar (message.react)
Canonical (space.send)

const sent = await message.react("love");

import { reaction } from "spectrum-ts";

const sent = await space.send(reaction("love", message));

Both forms are equivalent — message.react(emoji) delegates to space.send(reaction(emoji, message)) internally. Reactions resolve to a Message — keep it as the handle to unsend() later. Resolves undefined only when the platform does not support reactions. The reaction string is platform-specific. For iMessage, use the built-in tapback constants:

import { imessage } from "spectrum-ts/providers/imessage";

await message.react(imessage.tapbacks.laugh);

reaction() rejects reaction messages as targets — reacting to a reaction throws at build time. Available tapbacks:

Constant	Value
`imessage.tapbacks.love`	`"love"`
`imessage.tapbacks.like`	`"like"`
`imessage.tapbacks.dislike`	`"dislike"`
`imessage.tapbacks.laugh`	`"laugh"`
`imessage.tapbacks.emphasize`	`"emphasize"`
`imessage.tapbacks.question`	`"question"`

Threaded replies

Sugar (message.reply)
Canonical (space.send)

await message.reply("Replying to your message.");

await message.reply(
  "Here's the attachment you asked for:",
  attachment("/path/to/file.pdf"),
);

import { reply, text } from "spectrum-ts";

await space.send(reply(text("Replying to your message."), message));

Both forms are equivalent — message.reply(content) wraps each content item in reply(content, message) and delegates to space.send(...) internally. On platforms with thread support (iMessage, WhatsApp Business), this sends a threaded reply. On platforms without, the call resolves as a no-op — the reply is not downgraded to a regular send. If you need guaranteed delivery, use space.send(...) instead. reply() cannot wrap reply, edit, reaction, group, typing, rename, avatar, or unsend content — the builder throws at construction time.

Editing messages

Sugar (message.edit)
Canonical (space.send)

const sent = await space.send("Draft");
await sent.edit("Final version");

import { edit, text } from "spectrum-ts";

const sent = await space.send("Draft");
await space.send(edit(text("Final version"), sent));

edit() takes new content and the outbound message to rewrite. Edits are fire-and-forget — space.send(edit(...)) resolves to undefined. edit() cannot wrap edit, reply, reaction, group, typing, rename, avatar, or unsend content.

Unsending messages

Sugar (message.unsend)
Sugar (space.unsend)
Canonical (space.send)

const sent = await space.send("Oops");
await sent.unsend();

const sent = await space.send("Oops");
await space.unsend(sent);

import { unsend } from "spectrum-ts";

const sent = await space.send("Oops");
await space.send(unsend(sent));

Unsends retract a previously-sent outbound message. Fire-and-forget — the result is always undefined. Only outbound messages can be unsent; the builder throws at build time for inbound targets. Reactions can also be unsent — keep the Message returned by react() and pass it to unsend():

const reaction = await message.react("love");
await reaction?.unsend();

When to use what

Want to	Use
Send fresh content into the conversation	`space.send(...)`
Reply in-thread to a specific message	`message.reply(...)` or `space.send(reply(...))`
React to a specific message	`message.react(emoji)` or `space.send(reaction(emoji, message))`
Rewrite a sent message	`message.edit(content)` or `space.send(edit(content, message))`
Retract a sent message	`message.unsend()` or `space.unsend(message)` or `space.send(unsend(message))`

space.send is the safe default — it works on every platform. The sugar methods (message.reply, message.react, message.edit, message.unsend) and the canonical content builders (reply(), reaction(), edit(), unsend()) are interchangeable — they both route through the same send pipeline.

​Reactions

​Threaded replies

​Editing messages

​Unsending messages

​When to use what

Reactions

Threaded replies

Editing messages

Unsending messages

When to use what