WhatsApp — talk to your assistant from your phone

Ask on WhatsApp, answer in the mesh, reply on WhatsApp. With this package, a message you send to your deployment's WhatsApp Business number opens or continues an agent thread in your own space, and the assistant's answer comes back in the same WhatsApp chat. Because the thread is an ordinary mesh node, the conversation is readable, searchable and shareable in the portal afterwards.

It is for people who want to reach their assistant where they already are — on the phone, between meetings — without opening the portal.

What it is, and what it is not

WhatsApp offers no API over a person's own chats. The only sanctioned integration is the WhatsApp Business Platform (Cloud API): a business number that people message. So this channel is that business number. It does not read your private WhatsApp conversations, and it never uses the unofficial WhatsApp Web protocol, which breaks WhatsApp's terms and gets numbers banned.

How a conversation flows

1. You send a text message to the business number.
2. If your number is linked to your account, the message starts a new thread in your own space or continues your current one, running as you, with your own access rights.
3. The assistant's replies are sent back to the same chat as they arrive.
4. Send /new to start a fresh thread; the next message begins a new conversation.

WhatsApp may deliver a message more than once. A repeat of the most recently handled message from your number is recognised and does not run again; an older message redelivered after a newer one is not caught by this check. A restart of the installation does not resend answers you already received.

Linking: your phone proves it

A number reaches an account only after that number itself proves it:

1. Ask your Executive Assistant to link my WhatsApp and give it your number.
2. It gives you a code, valid for 15 minutes.
3. Send LINK <code> from that number to the business number.

The code works only from the number it was issued for, so a mistyped number never completes and an overheard code is useless without the phone. Linking the same number to another account replaces the earlier link: one number reaches exactly one account. A number that is not linked is told how to link, and nothing runs for it.

The assistant can also report the link's status, send a message to your own linked number, and unlink it again.

Your own WhatsApp chats in the inbox (Mac)

Separately from the business number, on a Mac that runs your mesh locally and has the WhatsApp desktop app, the package can list your own personal chats in your unified inbox: one row per chat with new incoming messages, who wrote, when (in your time zone), whether it is unread, and a short preview. It reads the desktop app's local database read-only and never talks to WhatsApp, so nothing is sent anywhere. Only the one user configured as that Mac's owner sees these rows.

Current limits

• Text only. Images, voice notes and documents get a polite request to type instead.
• Replies inside WhatsApp's 24-hour window. Outside it, WhatsApp allows only pre-approved template messages, so the channel cannot start a conversation on its own.

What an installation needs

The deployment needs a WhatsApp Business number on the Cloud API and a few configuration settings. Setting up WhatsApp describes them for subscribers and operators.

What you get when you subscribe

WhatsApp is in the Personal tier. Getting it adds the WhatsApp channel for your account, the assistant's WhatsApp tools (link, status, send to your own number, unlink) and, on a Mac, your own chats in the inbox.