Platforms

Zoom Meeting Bots

Send API-controlled bots into Zoom meetings to record, transcribe, and interact

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MeetStream bots join Zoom meetings through the Zoom Meeting SDK. Zoom is the one platform that needs a one-time setup (Google Meet and Microsoft Teams work with zero configuration) — after that, sending a bot is the same single create_bot call as everywhere else.

$curl -X POST "https://api.meetstream.ai/api/v1/bots/create_bot" \
>  -H "Authorization: Token <YOUR_API_KEY>" \
>  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
>  -d '{
>    "meeting_link": "https://zoom.us/j/123456789",
>    "bot_name": "Notetaker"
>  }'

One-time setup

  1. Create a General App in the Zoom App Marketplace (Develop → Build App → General App). User-managed or admin-managed both work.
  2. Set the OAuth Redirect URL to https://api.meetstream.ai/api/v1/admin/zoom/oauth/callback and add https://meetstream.ai to the OAuth Allow List.
  3. Under Features → Embed, enable Meeting SDK (leave Device OAuth off).
  4. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret into the MeetStream Dashboard → Integrations → Zoom, and complete the OAuth authorization.

Full walkthrough: Zoom Marketplace App Setup.

Development-mode limitation: with development credentials your bot can only join meetings hosted by your own Zoom account. To join anyone’s meetings, submit the app for production approval — see Zoom App Production Submission. Review typically takes a few business days.

Joining as your end users (OBF / hosted OAuth)

If you’re building a product where your customers connect their own Zoom accounts, use MeetStream’s hosted On-Behalf-Of flow. You register one Zoom OAuth app; each end user authorizes it once, and MeetStream stores one connection per end user keyed by their Zoom user ID.

1{
2  "meeting_link": "https://zoom.us/j/123456789?pwd=...",
3  "bot_name": "Notetaker",
4  "zoom": {
5    "use_zoom_obf": true,
6    "zoom_oauth_connection_user_id": "<zoom_user_id>"
7  }
8}

Connection management endpoints (/api/v1/zoom/oauth/...) never return token material — only identity and connection state. Full flow, required scopes (user:read:user, user:read:token), and error handling: Zoom OBF Implementation.

The recording permission flow

Zoom is the only platform where recording is gated on host consent. After bot.inmeeting, the bot requests recording permission and waits — so there can be a visible gap before bot.recording (on Meet and Teams it fires within about a second).

  • Host grants → bot.recording_permission_allowed → bot.recording
  • Host denies, or doesn’t respond within recording_permission_denied_timeout → bot.recording_permission_denied → bot.leaving → bot.stopped (a clean stop, not bot.denied)

recording_permission_denied_timeout accepts 60–300 seconds (default 60) and is ignored on the other platforms.

Zoom-specific behavior at a glance

BehaviorOn Zoom
SetupOne-time Marketplace app + dashboard credentials
Recording startGated on host permission (see above)
waiting_room_timeout60–1200s, default 600 → bot.notallowed if never admitted
Per-participant audioFull isolation — the Zoom SDK provides a dedicated raw PCM stream per participant, so each file contains only that speaker’s microphone. The cleanest per-participant files of any platform.
Per-participant videoWebcam 640×360 fixed @ 300 kbps; screen share at native resolution @ 1.5 Mbps; 1 concurrent screen share
Screenshots endpointNot supported on Zoom bots
Native captions (meeting_captions)Not available on Zoom — use any other transcription provider
Chat + imagessend_message and send_image inject chat and visuals into the live meeting

Troubleshooting joins

The usual causes when a Zoom bot fails to join:

  • Invalid or expired meeting link
  • App still in development mode and the meeting isn’t hosted by your account
  • Bot stuck in the waiting room until waiting_room_timeout fired (bot.notallowed)
  • Password-protected meeting link missing its ?pwd= component
  • OBF: the end user’s connection was revoked (password change, app uninstall, or 90+ days idle) — they need to reconnect

Watch it live with meetstream listen or the Debugging guide.

Next steps