WaBot (Ruby)

A simple personal WhatsApp Web bot using Ruby, Selenium, and WhatsApp Web. No WhatsApp Business API required.

Features:

• Register/login local users (username-only, stored locally)
• Persist WhatsApp Web session per user via Chrome profile directory
• CLI to login to WhatsApp Web (QR) and send messages

• Ruby 3.0+
• Google Chrome installed

cd wabot
bundle install

Note: This project uses Selenium Manager (built into selenium-webdriver >= 4.11) to automatically manage the browser driver. You do NOT need the webdrivers gem.

1. Register a local user:

ruby bin/wabot register -u alice

2. Login as that local user:

ruby bin/wabot login -u alice

3. Log in to WhatsApp Web (scan QR once). A Chrome window will open:

ruby bin/wabot wa_login

Wait until you see your chat list.

4. Send a message (reuses the saved WhatsApp Web session for the current user):

ruby bin/wabot send -t "+1234567890" -m "Hello from WaBot!"

Notes:

• Phone number must be in international format including country code, e.g., +14155552671
• Each local user gets a separate Chrome profile under ~/.wabot/profiles/<username> to persist WhatsApp login
• Selenium Manager will handle downloading a compatible chromedriver automatically

• Local users are username-only (no passwords) and stored in storage/users.json
• The current CLI login session is stored in storage/session.json
• Your WhatsApp Web cookies/tokens live inside profiles/<username>; keep this folder private

• If WhatsApp Web UI changes and selectors break, update selectors in lib/wabot/bot.rb
• If Chrome fails to start in headless on macOS, try with --headless=false to open a visible browser
• Clear a user's WhatsApp session by deleting profiles/<username> (you'll need to scan QR again)

You can use this as a library in your own Ruby code. Build and install the gem locally:

# Option A: install from RubyGems (recommended)
gem install wabot

# Option B: build locally from this repo
gem build wabot.gemspec
gem install ./wabot-0.1.2.gem

Then, in your Ruby app:

require "wabot"

# First-time only: open a visible window and log in (scan QR)
WaBot.login(username: "alice", headless: false)

# Later: open a session and send multiple messages inside a block
WaBot.session(username: "alice", headless: true) do |bot|
  bot.send_message(phone_number: "+14155552671", message: "Hello from WaBot")
  bot.send_message(phone_number: "+14155552672", message: "Second message")
end

Using with Bundler (Gemfile):

gem "wabot", "~> 0.1.0"

Then in code:

require "wabot"

CLI when installed via gem:

wabot login -u alice
# Headless is the default
wabot send -t "+1234567890" -m "Hello from WaBot"

# To open a visible Chrome window
wabot send -t "+1234567890" -m "Hello from WaBot" --headless=false

Notes:

• Library defaults to storing Chrome profiles under ~/.wabot/profiles/<username> so your session persists across uses.
• If you prefer a visible browser for debugging, set headless: false in WaBot.session(...).