---
title: "Start a chat (Sales Navigator)"
method: POST
path: "/v1/{account_id}/sales-navigator/chats"
tags: ["Sales Navigator: Messaging"]
---

# Start a chat (Sales Navigator)

`POST /v1/{account_id}/sales-navigator/chats`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://api.curviate.com`
- URL: `https://api.curviate.com/v1/{account_id}/sales-navigator/chats`
- Auth: HTTP bearer

Sends an opening InMail-style message to one or more Sales Navigator members. subject is required. Accepts optional base64 attachments (JSON only, no multipart). Requires a Sales Navigator seat.

## Path parameters

- `account_id` string, required

## Request body

- object
  - `attendees_ids` string[], required: Sales Navigator member IDs for the chat recipients (>= 1, e.g. ACw...).
  - `text` string, required: Opening message text (1-8000 chars). This call keeps nothing and logs nothing. Once sent it is a message in the account's InMail inbox, so reading that chat back through Curviate stores its body in your tenant's inbox records, with no expiry.
  - `subject` string, required: Subject line; REQUIRED for Sales Navigator (InMail-based messaging), unlike the classic surface where it is optional (<= 200 chars). Maps into the SN-only specifics branch.
  - `attachments` object[]: Optional file / voice / video attachments (base64-encoded).
    - `content` string, required: Base64-encoded file bytes.
    - `content_type` string, required: Attachment MIME type (e.g. image/png, audio/mp4).
    - `filename` string, required: File name for the attachment.
    - `send_mode` 'file' | 'native': 'file' = a normal file attachment; 'native' = a platform-native voice/video bubble.
    - `metadata` object: Extra attachment metadata (duration for native voice/video).
      - `duration` integer: Duration in milliseconds; required for native voice/video.

## Response `201`

Chat started. Returns the new Sales Navigator chat_id and opening message_id.

- object
  - `object` 'chat_started', required: Response type discriminator.
  - `chat_id` string, nullable, required: The newly created Sales Navigator chat identifier.
  - `message_id` union, required: The opening message identifier. Null when no message was actually sent, and an array when the message was delivered as several messages, one per attachment. Confirm the send with chat_id, which is always present.
    - string
    - string[]
  - `safety_warning` SafetyWarning: Present on a successful response when this account crossed an account-safety ceiling while the affected budget row is on the default warn posture. The action still happened. Field-identical to the BUDGET_EXHAUSTED error body except that blocked is false and hint.message describes the outcome, so one branch handles both postures and switching the account to enforce is a configuration change rather than a client rewrite.
    - `row` string, nullable, required: The budget row that breached, for example profile_views or pending_invites. Null when the breach is not about a row: an activity_window warning on an action that spends no budget of its own (editing a message, dismissing a notification, a Recruiter or Sales Navigator admin action) is still governed by the hours the account works in. Read hint.parameter for what to change; whenever this is null it names posture, because the activity window edges are set per action type and this action has none, so the levers that reach it are the account timezone and posture.
    - `reset_at` string, nullable, required: The instant the refusal lifts: the window roll on a ceiling refusal, the next window open on an activity-window one. Null in the two cases no clock frees, the pending_invites gauge and InMail credits (row inmail).
    - `hint` object, required
      - `parameter` string, required: The settable parameter on PATCH /v1/{account_id}/safety-policy.
      - `message` string, required: What the condition is and what changing that parameter would do. This is the one field whose text differs from the BUDGET_EXHAUSTED refusal: here it says the action went through, and on a ceiling breach how far past the ceiling this row now stands, rather than telling you to set posture to warn when it already is. Branch on parameter, reason and blocked, never on this text.
    - `reason` 'ceiling' | 'activity_window', required: Which rule was crossed. ceiling means the row's configured limit is spent; activity_window means the account is outside the hours it works in, which is a different fact with a different remedy. hint.parameter names the right setting for each.
    - `blocked` boolean, required: Always false here. True on the BUDGET_EXHAUSTED refusal carrying the same payload.

## Other responses

- `400`: Invalid request, missing text/subject/attendees_ids, or a rejected api/linkedin/specifics selector field.
- `401`: Unauthenticated, missing or invalid API key.
- `403`: Forbidden. Either NO_ACTIVE_SEAT (the account is not attached to an active seat), or LINKEDIN_FEATURE_NOT_SUBSCRIBED (the connected LinkedIn account lacks the Sales Navigator subscription; activate it on LinkedIn, reconnecting will not help). The code field distinguishes the two.
- `404`: ACCOUNT_NOT_FOUND, the account_id does not exist or does not belong to this tenant. An id whose connection was replaced or removed also stops resolving here, and it is already absent from the list, so re-read `GET /v1/accounts` for the current id.
- `413`: Payload too large. Three triggers, smallest first: the platform's own ceiling on total request size, which rejects bodies from roughly 1 MB and is the one most callers hit; then the caps enforced here, 5 MiB per attachment and 9 MiB for the whole request body. Base64 inflates a file by about 33 percent, so a 5 MiB file costs about 6.7 MiB of the body budget. Send fewer or smaller attachments; retrying the same request unchanged will not help.
- `415`: Unsupported media type, request must use application/json.
- `422`: ACCOUNT_RESTRICTED, the connected LinkedIn account cannot perform this operation.
- `429`: RATE_LIMIT_ACCOUNT, request rate exceeded.
- `500`: Internal error.
- `502`: A temporary error occurred. Please try again.
- `503`: Service unavailable.
- `504`: Gateway timeout.

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/curviate/apis/curviate-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/curviate/apis/curviate-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/curviate/apis/curviate-api/revisions/eab848801d95?raw)