wazap-mcp

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WhatsApp for your AI agent. An MCP server that puts your WhatsApp account — chats, messages, media, contacts, groups — behind 25 tools any MCP client can call. Pairing-code login, no browser, no phone-number reseller, ~20 MB of RAM.

Built on Baileys, which speaks the WhatsApp multi-device protocol over a WebSocket.

Get started

The npm package is wazap-mcp; the command it installs is wazap.

npx wazap-mcp setup

That is the whole install. It links your account, finds the MCP clients installed on this machine, writes their config, copies the five skills where that client reads them, and tells you what to restart. When you started through npx, setup offers to install wazap globally so Claude Desktop and the background service have a path that does not change. It also offers to brew install whisper-cpp, ffmpeg or Tailscale when a step needs one and it is missing, and to restart Claude Desktop itself once it has connected it.

Or the path your harness prefers

Harness	Fastest path
Claude Code	/plugin marketplace add razvangirgiz/wazap, then /plugin install wazap@wazap
Claude Desktop	download wazap-<version>.mcpb from Releases and double-click it
Gemini CLI	gemini extensions install https://github.com/razvangirgiz/wazap
Cursor	the Install in Cursor badge, then npx wazap-mcp skills install cursor
VS Code	the Install in VS Code badge
Codex CLI	npx wazap-mcp connect codex, then npx wazap-mcp skills install codex
OpenCode	npx wazap-mcp connect opencode, then npx wazap-mcp skills install opencode
Windsurf	npx wazap-mcp connect windsurf
Anything else	the MCP entry npx -y wazap-mcp over stdio, or a self-hosted URL

Each of those registers the server. Linking the WhatsApp account is a separate, one-time step in every one of them: npx wazap-mcp login.

Or have your agent do it. Paste this:

Set up WhatsApp for me: run npx wazap-mcp setup --agent and follow what it prints.

Then ask your agent: "what did I miss on WhatsApp today?"

Below are the steps setup runs for you. Each is still its own command when you want to run it by hand.

npx wazap-mcp login shows a QR code; scan it from Settings → Linked devices → Link a device. No camera handy, or linking over SSH? npx wazap-mcp login --phone +15550100 prints an 8-character code you type under Link with phone number instead. It ends by asking whether the agent may send messages; the answer is no unless you say yes, and npx wazap-mcp config writes on changes it later.

npx wazap-mcp connect claude-code writes the MCP entry for one client. The table under Connect a client has the rest.

npx wazap-mcp on its own is safe to run: it prints where you stand and what to do next, and starts no server. When something is off, npx wazap-mcp status is the first thing to run — it checks Node, the data directory, the lock, the credentials and whether a newer version is out, and prints the fix next to anything broken.

Connect a client

wazap connect <client> writes the entry for you, keeping whatever else is in the file and backing it up once before the first change. --dry-run shows what it would write.

Client	What connect writes
claude-code	runs claude mcp add whatsapp for you
claude-desktop	claude_desktop_config.json in the Claude application directory
cursor	~/.cursor/mcp.json
codex	[mcp_servers.whatsapp] in ~/.codex/config.toml
vscode	./.vscode/mcp.json, for the current workspace
gemini	~/.gemini/settings.json
windsurf	~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json
opencode	mcp.whatsapp in ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json
anything remote	client's MCP URL field: https://your-host/mcp with header Authorization: Bearer <token>, or just the URL once OAuth is on (see Self-host)

Other MCP clients

Cursor and VS Code install from a link:

Both carry the same entry connect writes. Where a custom scheme is stripped before you can click it, VS Code also takes the https form. node scripts/badges.mjs reprints all three.

Any other MCP client works the same way: the command is npx -y wazap-mcp, the transport is stdio. Tell the agent to call learn first — it returns the id formats, the workflows and every error code with what to do about it.

<details> <summary>The raw entries, for editing by hand</summary>

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "whatsapp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "wazap-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop, Cursor, Gemini CLI and Windsurf take exactly that. VS Code nests it under servers and wants a "type": "stdio" alongside command. Codex CLI is TOML:

[mcp_servers.whatsapp]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "wazap-mcp"]

OpenCode takes the command and its arguments as one array, under mcp:

{
  "mcp": {
    "whatsapp": { "type": "local", "command": ["npx", "-y", "wazap-mcp"] }
  }
}

</details>

The skills/ folder follows the Agent Skills format, so Codex, Cursor and other skill-aware agents can load the same five skills.

Gemini CLI

gemini extensions install https://github.com/razvangirgiz/wazap

That reads gemini-extension.json at the repo root, so it registers the MCP server and loads GEMINI.md — the five skills below, concatenated, because the Gemini CLI takes one context file per extension rather than a skills directory. wazap connect gemini writes the server alone, without the context.

GEMINI.md is generated: npm run context:build rebuilds it from skills/*/SKILL.md, and a test fails if the two have drifted, so a workflow is only ever edited in its skill.

Claude Desktop, without a terminal

Download wazap-<version>.mcpb from Releases and double-click it. Claude Desktop installs the server, its Node dependencies and the icon, and shows two settings: Read-only, ticked, and Data directory, empty. wazap connect claude-desktop does the same job by editing claude_desktop_config.json. Claude Desktop starts its servers without your shell PATH, so that entry is the absolute path to node when wazap is installed globally, and npx otherwise; wazap setup checks that the entry it wrote is one Claude Desktop can actually launch.

Then ask Claude to link your WhatsApp. It calls link_account with your number, hands back an 8-character code, and you type that code into WhatsApp → Settings → Linked devices → Link a device → Link with phone number instead. No terminal at any point. npx wazap-mcp login does the same job from a shell when you have one.

Untick Read-only to let Claude send. It ships ticked because a bundle that can message people from your number before you have said so is the wrong default, and because the setting cannot be left unanswered: the manifest format has no way to omit an argument, so the box you see is the answer the server gets. link_account is registered either way. Read-only exists to stop Claude messaging people from your number, and relinking your own dead session messages nobody.

Build it yourself with npm run bundle:mcpb, which stages dist/, the manifest, the icon and a fresh production node_modules, then packs them with @anthropic-ai/mcpb.

Keep it running

A wazap started by a client lives as long as that client does. Quit Claude Code and the session is gone until you open it again. Two commands change that. Staying up and being reachable are separate choices.

npx wazap-mcp service install

That writes a launchd agent on macOS (~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.wazap.server.plist) or a systemd user unit on Linux (~/.config/systemd/user/wazap.service), starts it, and waits for /healthz to answer. The unit runs serve --http on 127.0.0.1:8766 with the absolute path of this Node and this install, so it survives a reboot and a logout. Point any client at http://127.0.0.1:8766/mcp, or keep using the stdio entry. A second wazap on the same data directory becomes a bridge onto the session this one holds.

service status prints the pid, the health check and whether the unit still runs the version you have installed. service logs tails it. service restart picks up an upgrade; service uninstall removes the unit and leaves your session and credentials alone. wazap login needs the session to itself, so it stops the service, pairs, and starts it again on its own.

A sleeping Mac is an offline wazap. System Settings → Lock Screen, or Battery → Options, has the switch that keeps it awake on power.

npx wazap-mcp expose

That gives the running service a public https URL, for agents that are not on this machine: a cloud agent, claude.ai, ChatGPT. It uses Tailscale Funnel if tailscale is installed, Cloudflare Tunnel if cloudflared is, opens the tunnel, writes WAZAP_PUBLIC_URL and a fresh WAZAP_OAUTH_PASSWORD into <data-dir>/.env, restarts the service and checks the URL from here. It then prints the MCP URL and the password once.

Give an agent the URL only. It signs in on a consent page on your own host with that password and picks read or read-and-send there; wazap status lists who holds a grant. See Hosted agents (OAuth) for what that page does. npx wazap-mcp expose off takes the tunnel down and keeps the password, so the next expose hands agents the same one.

npx wazap-mcp setup asks all of this once, as its fourth step.

Upgrade

npx wazap-mcp update

One command for what used to be three. It compares this install against the registry, installs the new package when wazap is global, restarts the service so it runs the new code, and copies the new skills into every harness that keeps them. --dry-run prints the plan and touches nothing.

Tools

Tool	Kind	What it does
learn	read	The guide to every tool, id format and error code. Call it first.
get_status	read	Connection status, sync state, linked account, named-contact count, versions, data dir.
link_account	read	Pair the account without a terminal: returns the code to type into the phone. Registered in read-only mode too.
list_chats	read	Conversations newest-first; filter all/unread/groups/individual/archived.
read_messages	read	Messages in a chat; before pages further back, pulling older history from the phone; types narrows to one or more message types, e.g. ["call"].
get_recent_messages	read	Everything from the last N hours, grouped by chat. The catch-up tool. include_system adds WhatsApp's own notices, types narrows to one or more message types.
search_messages	read	Text search across the locally held messages.
get_message	read	One message in full, with its quoted message and reactions.
search_contacts	read	Find contacts by name or number.
sync_contacts	read	Fetch the phone's address book from WhatsApp again, when names are missing.
get_contact	read	Name, number, about text, profile picture.
get_group_info	read	Participants, admins, announcement mode, invite link (when you are admin).
download_media	read	Save an attachment to disk; small images also come back inline.
transcribe_audio	read	Turn a voice note or audio message into text, with the local or the API provider.
send_message	write	Send text, optionally as a reply, with @-mentions.
send_media	write	Send an image, video, audio, voice note or document from a path or URL.
send_poll	write	Send a poll with 2–12 options.
send_location	write	Send a map pin.
edit_message	write	Edit your own message, within WhatsApp's 15-minute window.
react_to_message	write	Add or remove an emoji reaction.
forward_message	write	Forward a message to another chat.
delete_message	write	Retract your own message, within WhatsApp's 2-day window.
manage_chat	write	Archive, pin, mute (8h by default), mark read/unread.
create_group	write	Create a group and add participants.
manage_group	write	Add, remove, promote, demote, leave, rename, invite links.

Every message comes back with a non-empty text: media and system messages carry a placeholder such as [image] caption, [voice message · 0:42], [deleted] or [poll] Pizza or pasta?. Timestamps are ISO 8601 with the machine's UTC offset, alongside a human age like 2h ago.

Voice messages

A voice note is the one message an agent cannot read. Switch transcription on and it becomes text: [voice message · 0:42] "sunt la notar, ajung în 20 de minute", with the bare words also in a transcript field. get_recent_messages and search_messages see that text, so a voice note becomes findable by what was said in it.

Pick a provider once, in wazap setup or later:

wazap config transcribe local     # free and private, one 574 MB model on disk
wazap config transcribe openai    # cheap and fast, the audio leaves this machine
wazap config transcribe off

	local	openai
Runs	whisper.cpp, here	any OpenAI-compatible /audio/transcriptions
Costs	nothing	per minute of audio, on your key
Privacy	the audio never leaves this machine	the audio leaves this machine
Needs	whisper-cpp and ffmpeg, plus a model	an API key

Local, with whisper.cpp

brew install whisper-cpp ffmpeg      # macOS; elsewhere build whisper.cpp, install ffmpeg from your package manager
wazap transcribe download            # fetch and verify the model
wazap transcribe test recording.ogg  # prove it before you trust it

wazap setup and wazap transcribe download offer that brew install themselves when either binary is missing, and go straight on to the model in the same run. --no-brew turns the offer off everywhere.

Models land in <data-dir>/models/ and are checked against a SHA-256 pinned in the source; an interrupted download resumes where it stopped.

WAZAP_WHISPER_MODEL	File	Size
turbo (default)	ggml-large-v3-turbo-q5_0.bin	574 MB
large-v3	ggml-large-v3-q5_0.bin	1.08 GB
medium	ggml-medium-q5_0.bin	539 MB

turbo is the default because it is the smallest model that still gets Romanian right. medium and below drop diacritics and mangle names, which is worse than no transcript at all: a missing transcript is a question, a wrong name is a wrong answer. large-v3 is the same accuracy for several times the wait.

An API, OpenAI-compatible

wazap config transcribe openai asks for the key without echoing it and stores it in <data-dir>/.env. The default endpoint is OpenAI; Groq works unchanged:

WAZAP_TRANSCRIBE_URL=https://api.groq.com/openai/v1
WAZAP_TRANSCRIBE_MODEL=whisper-large-v3-turbo

With this provider the audio leaves your machine. Every voice note wazap transcribes is uploaded to that endpoint. If that is not acceptable, use local, which uploads nothing.

The key is treated as a secret rather than as a setting:

• It is never accepted as a command-line argument, because an argument lands in your shell history and in ps.
• The prompt echoes nothing, not even asterisks.
• It is stored only in <data-dir>/.env, mode 0600.
• status, status --json, config and get_status show at most api key: set (…abcd).
• A provider's own error message has the key stripped out of it before wazap prints it.
• A plain-http WAZAP_TRANSCRIBE_URL is refused unless it points back at this machine.

Without being asked

With a provider configured, incoming voice notes of up to ten minutes are transcribed in the background as they arrive, one at a time, never holding up a message. The transcript is cached by message id and persisted, so a voice note is transcribed once and not again after a restart. Audio files are left alone, since one can be an hour long; call transcribe_audio(message_id) for those. WAZAP_TRANSCRIBE_AUTO=0 keeps the tool and stops the background work.

Skills

wazap ships five Agent Skills that teach an agent the workflows behind the tools, not just the tools:

Skill	What the agent does
wazap-setup	Diagnose with wazap status, link by QR or pairing code, connect a client with wazap connect, repair an expired session
whatsapp-inbox	"What did I miss?" Triage into needs you / FYI / noise, ranked, plus forgotten replies. Read-only
whatsapp-recall	"Find the invoice Dan sent." Search with query variants, page back in time, download and read the file. Read-only
whatsapp-groups	Catch up on a 300-message group: decisions, dates, what is asked of you. Read-only
whatsapp-send	Draft in the chat's own register, show recipient and text, send only after the user says yes

wazap setup copies them into every client it connects, so there is usually nothing to run. The command behind it, for a harness setup never offered or for a checkout you want to install by hand:

npx wazap-mcp skills install codex     # or claude-code, cursor, opencode, agents

With no harness named it installs into every client it finds on this machine. For Claude Code the other route is the plugin, which carries the server as well:

/plugin marketplace add razvangirgiz/wazap
/plugin install wazap@wazap

Harness	Where the five directories land
claude-code	~/.claude/skills/
codex	~/.agents/skills/, the directory Codex documents for user skills. Cursor and OpenCode read it too
cursor	~/.cursor/skills/
opencode	~/.config/opencode/skills/
agents	./.agents/skills/, in the current project, for anything that reads the cross-tool convention

Re-running overwrites, so an upgrade is the same command. --dry-run lists what it would copy.

A client with no skills directory is not left out. The server registers each of the five as an MCP prompt of the same name, and sends a short instructions block that names all five and says when each applies, so an agent that never saw the skill files still follows them. That is how Claude Desktop, VS Code and Windsurf get the workflows. A bridged session and a self-hosted HTTP server carry them the same way.

Errors

Every failure is a structured { error, message, fix } rather than a stack trace, so an agent can decide whether to retry, ask the user, or stop.

Code	Meaning
NOT_LINKED	No account linked. Call link_account, or run npx wazap-mcp login.
ALREADY_LINKED	link_account was called on a session that is already linked. Call get_status.
SESSION_EXPIRED	Unlinked from the phone. Run npx wazap-mcp login.
SESSION_CORRUPT	Credentials unreadable. Run npx wazap-mcp logout then login.
NOT_CONNECTED	Still connecting or reconnecting.
SYNC_IN_PROGRESS	History sync has not finished; results may be partial.
INVALID_PHONE	Number is not in international format.
INVALID_ID	Not a WhatsApp chat, contact or group id.
NOT_ON_WHATSAPP	That number has no WhatsApp account.
CHAT_NOT_FOUND / MESSAGE_NOT_FOUND / CONTACT_NOT_FOUND / GROUP_NOT_FOUND	Unknown id.
NOT_A_PARTICIPANT / NOT_ADMIN / GROUP_ANNOUNCEMENT_ONLY	Group permissions.
MEDIA_UNAVAILABLE	WhatsApp expired the file, or it was never synced here.
FILE_NOT_FOUND / FILE_TOO_LARGE / URL_FETCH_FAILED	Outbound media problems.
TEXT_TOO_LONG	Over WhatsApp's message limit.
EDIT_WINDOW_EXPIRED / RETRACT_WINDOW_EXPIRED / NOT_OWN_MESSAGE	WhatsApp's own limits on editing and deleting.
READ_ONLY	wazap is running read-only.
RATE_LIMITED	Too many writes; fix says how long to wait.
TIMEOUT / WHATSAPP_ERROR	WhatsApp did not answer, or rejected the operation.

Data directory

Everything lives in ~/.wazap (override with --data-dir or WAZAP_DATA_DIR), created 0700 with credentials written 0600:

~/.wazap/
  auth/         WhatsApp credentials — treat this like a password
  media/        downloads from download_media
  history/      per-chat message history, so a restart is not amnesia
  models/       whisper.cpp models, when transcription runs locally
  store.json    chat-list snapshot
  server.lock   pid of the running server
  daemon.json   loopback endpoint a second wazap bridges to
  oauth.json    registered agents and hashed OAuth grants, when OAuth is on
  .env          optional settings, see .env.example

Credential writes go to a temp file and are renamed into place, so killing the process mid-write cannot leave you re-linking your phone.

Several clients at once

Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor each launch their own wazap. WhatsApp allows one socket per linked device, so they share one session instead of fighting over it. The first wazap on a data directory owns the session and opens an MCP endpoint on 127.0.0.1; every later one bridges to it over that endpoint. There is nothing to configure, and no client can tell the difference. The owner publishes <data-dir>/daemon.json (0600) with its pid, its port and the token a bridge authenticates with.

A bridge serves whatever the owner exposes, so an owner started --read-only makes every client read-only, whatever flags that client was launched with.

When the owner exits, the bridges exit with it, and the next wazap a client starts becomes the new owner.

WAZAP_NO_SHARE=1 opts out: a second wazap on the same directory exits with code 2 naming the pid of the one already running. An explicit --http is a server of its own rather than a bridge, and is refused the same way.

Read-only mode

Writes are opt-in. login asks once and stores the answer in <data-dir>/.env; wazap config writes on|off changes it, and wazap config alone prints every effective setting with where it came from.

WAZAP_READ_ONLY=1 or wazap serve --read-only does not register the write tools at all. The agent never sees them, so it cannot message anyone from your number even by mistake — useful when the linked account is your personal one.

Writes are also rate limited to WAZAP_RATE_LIMIT per minute (default 20, 0 disables). Sending faster than a human is how accounts get banned.

HTTP mode

WAZAP_READ_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
WAZAP_WRITE_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
npx wazap-mcp serve --http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8766

Streamable HTTP at /mcp, with a health check at /healthz. That check answers { ok, status, since }. It turns 503 once the socket has been anything but connected for two minutes, so a tunnel or a monitor sees a real outage rather than a reconnect in progress. Two bearer tokens: the read token gets the read tools, the write token also unlocks the write tools, so a leaked read token can never message anyone. wazap refuses to bind a non-loopback address without a read token. Agents that cannot carry a header sign in with OAuth instead.

Self-host

Run wazap on a server of your own when the agent is not on your laptop: another machine, a VPS, a client's infrastructure. The session stays on that server; nothing goes through a third party.

With systemd

npm install -g wazap-mcp
sudo useradd --system --home /var/lib/wazap --create-home wazap
sudo -u wazap WAZAP_DATA_DIR=/var/lib/wazap wazap login --phone +15550100   # pairing code works over SSH
sudo -u wazap tee /var/lib/wazap/.env >/dev/null <<END
WAZAP_READ_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
WAZAP_WRITE_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
END
sudo curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/razvangirgiz/wazap/main/deploy/wazap.service -o /etc/systemd/system/wazap.service
sudo systemctl enable --now wazap
curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8766/healthz

The unit binds loopback only. Put TLS in front with the two-line deploy/Caddyfile (caddy run --config deploy/Caddyfile after editing the hostname) or any reverse proxy, then point the client at https://your-host/mcp with Authorization: Bearer <read or write token>.

With Docker

git clone https://github.com/razvangirgiz/wazap && cd wazap
printf 'WAZAP_READ_TOKEN=%s\nWAZAP_WRITE_TOKEN=%s\n' $(openssl rand -hex 32) $(openssl rand -hex 32) > .env
docker compose run --rm wazap login --phone +15550100   # once; the session lands in the wazap-data volume
docker compose up -d
curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8766/healthz

The container publishes 8766 on loopback only; add the same TLS proxy in front. Upgrading is git pull && docker compose up -d --build; the volume keeps the session.

From a machine without a public address

A laptop or a box behind NAT can still serve hosted agents through a tunnel, with no port opened and TLS done at the edge. npx wazap-mcp expose does the whole thing with Tailscale Funnel or Cloudflare Tunnel, whichever is installed. See Keep it running.

wazap keeps binding loopback either way; only the tunnel reaches it.

<details> <summary>By hand, with Cloudflare Tunnel and a domain on Cloudflare</summary>

cloudflared tunnel login
cloudflared tunnel create wazap
cloudflared tunnel route dns wazap wazap.example.com
cloudflared tunnel run --url http://127.0.0.1:8766 wazap

Set WAZAP_PUBLIC_URL=https://wazap.example.com for OAuth and keep cloudflared running the way you keep wazap running (a systemd unit, a launchd agent). Tailscale Funnel or ngrok work the same way: whatever ends at https://your-host with /mcp behind it.

</details>

Which clients can reach it

Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, VS Code, Poke and any client with an "MCP URL + header" field connect with the bearer token. Keep the read token in clients that only need to read; hand out the write token deliberately.

claude.ai Connectors, ChatGPT and some hosted agents will not take a static header. They want OAuth, which is the next section.

Hosted agents (OAuth)

Two more lines in the same .env turn wazap into its own OAuth 2.1 server:

WAZAP_PUBLIC_URL=https://wazap.example.com
WAZAP_OAUTH_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 18)

Then give an agent nothing but https://wazap.example.com/mcp. It finds the authorization server at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp, registers itself (RFC 7591, so there is no client id to paste anywhere), and sends you to a page on your own host that asks two things: the password above, and whether this agent may only read or also send. A refresh token keeps the agent signed in until you revoke it; access tokens rotate every 24 hours on their own.

Tested against the flow claude.ai, ChatGPT and Poke use: S256 PKCE, public clients, /token with refresh, /revoke. The bearer tokens keep working next to it, so a laptop client on a header and a hosted agent on OAuth share one server.

What to know before exposing it:

• WAZAP_PUBLIC_URL must be https and a bare origin, no path: the endpoints live at its root. The password travels to it.
• The password is the whole identity layer. Use a long one. A consent page takes three wrong guesses and is gone; five from one address lock that address out for fifteen minutes; twenty from anywhere close the page for everyone for fifteen minutes.
• With OAuth on, /mcp never answers an unauthenticated request, whether or not a read token is set.
• Grants live in <data-dir>/oauth.json as hashes. Delete the file to sign every agent out at once, running server included; wazap status lists who holds one. Disconnecting an agent on its side revokes its refresh token and every access token it minted. A refresh token unused for ninety days is dropped.
• A read grant never sees a write tool, whatever scope the agent requested. The radio button on the consent page is the only thing that decides.

Settings

Variable	Default	Meaning
WAZAP_DATA_DIR	~/.wazap	Where everything is stored.
WAZAP_READ_ONLY	0	Do not register the write tools.
WAZAP_SYNC_FULL_HISTORY	0	Ask WhatsApp for a fuller history sync.
WAZAP_PERSIST_HISTORY	1	Keep chats and messages across restarts.
WAZAP_RATE_LIMIT	20	Write tool calls per minute; 0 disables.
WAZAP_TRANSPORT	stdio	stdio or http.
WAZAP_HOST / WAZAP_PORT	127.0.0.1 / 8766	HTTP bind address.
WAZAP_READ_TOKEN / WAZAP_WRITE_TOKEN	unset	HTTP bearer tokens.
WAZAP_PUBLIC_URL	unset	The https address agents reach the server at. With the password, turns OAuth on.
WAZAP_OAUTH_PASSWORD	unset	What the consent page asks for. At least 8 characters.
WAZAP_NO_UPDATE_CHECK	0	1 stops status asking npm for a newer version.
WAZAP_TRANSCRIBE	off	local, openai or off.
WAZAP_TRANSCRIBE_AUTO	1	Transcribe incoming voice notes in the background.
WAZAP_TRANSCRIBE_LANGUAGE	auto	Spoken language, e.g. ro.
WAZAP_WHISPER_MODEL	turbo	turbo, large-v3 or medium.
WAZAP_WHISPER_BIN	unset	Path to a whisper.cpp binary that is not on PATH.
WAZAP_TRANSCRIBE_API_KEY	unset	API key; OPENAI_API_KEY is the fallback. Never a flag.
WAZAP_TRANSCRIBE_URL	https://api.openai.com/v1	OpenAI-compatible base URL.
WAZAP_TRANSCRIBE_MODEL	gpt-4o-mini-transcribe	Model at that URL.

Flags beat environment variables, which beat <data-dir>/.env.

Known limitations

• Unofficial. Baileys reverse-engineers the WhatsApp multi-device protocol. This is not the WhatsApp Business API and Meta does not support it.
• Ban risk is real. Automated sending, bulk messaging or anything a human would not plausibly type can get the number banned, and that is not recoverable from here. The rate limit helps; it is not a guarantee.
• Media keys expire. WhatsApp drops old attachments from its servers, so download_media on an old message returns MEDIA_UNAVAILABLE.
• History is what the phone syncs. wazap sees the history WhatsApp hands the linked device, not your full phone archive. read_messages with before asks for more, within whatever WhatsApp still keeps.
• @lid ids. Newer accounts are addressed by a privacy id rather than a phone number. wazap translates them back to phone numbers when it has learned the mapping, and passes the @lid through when it has not.
• Names come from the phone's address book. WhatsApp delivers it as an app state sync, and only to a connection asking for it from scratch. If contacts read as phone numbers and get_status shows contacts_named: 0, ask for it again with the sync_contacts tool or wazap contacts resync.
• Calls are WhatsApp calls only. A call shows up as a message with type: "call", carrying its kind, direction, outcome and duration. WhatsApp's own call log and the missed-call notices arrive on their own; a call that starts and ends while wazap is running is recorded live, so calls placed or received while it is stopped can be missing entirely. A cellular call from the phone's dialler is never visible, on any device.
• Your phone must stay reachable. A linked device stops receiving once the phone has been offline long enough; get_status says so in hint.

Development

npm install
npm run typecheck
npm test                       # builds, then runs node --test
node test/smoke-stdio.mjs      # drives the built binary over MCP stdio
npm run dev -- status          # run from source with tsx

npm test needs no WhatsApp session. The stdio smoke test spawns the built binary against a throwaway data directory and checks that an unlinked install still answers initialize, tools/list and get_status.

MIT licensed.