| FMRS | 57 / 100 · C | 64 / 100 · C |
|---|
| Reliability | 8 / 20 | 10 / 20 |
|---|
| Security and permissions | 8 / 20 | 12 / 20 |
|---|
| Maintenance | 13 / 20 | 12 / 20 |
|---|
| Documentation | 16 / 20 | 16 / 20 |
|---|
| Setup experience | 12 / 20 | 14 / 20 |
|---|
| Best for | - Developers blocked by OAuth app registration or admin approval
- Users across Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, and Codex CLI
- Self-hosters who want tokens and data kept local
| - Individuals who want to talk to Claude from their personal WhatsApp number
- Developers comfortable configuring from a terminal and using the Claude Code development flag
- Automation scenarios needing remote tool approval from a phone
|
|---|
| Not for | - Workspaces whose acceptable-use policy forbids unofficial clients (consider the OAuth hosted tier)
- Compliance-sensitive environments uncomfortable reusing personal browser session credentials
- Teams needing official Slack support (not affiliated with Slack Technologies)
| - Compliance scenarios requiring the official WhatsApp Business API or a Meta developer account
- Teams needing officially hosted, multi-tenant, or cloud multi-instance deployment
- Environments unable to guarantee only one client instance at a time
- Users expecting voice transcription without setting up mlx-whisper themselves
|
|---|
| Required permissions | - Requires Slack browser session token (xoxc-) and cookie (xoxd-); the agent's footprint equals your browser session exactly
- On macOS, Chrome auto-extraction reads Chrome's local LevelDB and the Chrome Safe Storage key from the Keychain
- Write tools (send, react, mark read) carry MCP destructive annotations so clients can gate them
| - Read and send WhatsApp messages as your personal number
- Access the local runtime state directory ~/.whatsapp-channel/ (auth, allowlists, group configs, inbox)
- Read and write local repository files and run scripts (e.g. bun scripts/access.ts, scripts/watchdog.sh)
- Optional local voice transcription (ffmpeg and an mlx-whisper environment)
|
|---|
| Risks and side effects | - Automating your own session is a gray area under Slack's terms — this is an unofficial client
- No app install appears in the admin panel, but traffic is still subject to workspace compliance exports, DLP, and retention
- Session tokens expire roughly every 1–2 weeks, requiring re-extraction or the hosted OAuth tier
- Tokens equate to your full Slack session; a leak means a session leak
| - Messages Claude sends appear from your own number and are indistinguishable to recipients
- WhatsApp allows one linked-device session per account; running two servers makes them kick each other off
- Access-control commands are deliberately not MCP tools (terminal-only); exposing them to the message side risks prompt injection
- Session waking depends on the Claude Code channel extension; other clients get no push
- A known Claude Code client bug (#37933) may cause messages not to arrive, a client-side issue
- Launching with --dangerously-load-development-channels carries risk, so verify the source is trustworthy
|
|---|
| Supported clients | Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, Codex | Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor |
|---|
| Tools | 21 | 10 |
|---|