WhatsApp MCP Server

A server that provides a Model Context Protocol (MCP) interface to interact with WhatsApp Business API.

Introduction

WhatsApp MCP Server is a Python implementation that enables language models like Claude to interact with WhatsApp functionality through GreenAPI.

Features

Messaging: Send text messages
Group Management: Create groups, list members, add/remove participants

WhatsApp API Client

This project uses the whatsapp-api-client-python library to interact with WhatsApp. The client provides access to the WhatsApp Cloud API, which requires a GreenAPI account to use.

Environment Variables

This project uses environment variables for configuration:

GREENAPI_ID_INSTANCE: Your GreenAPI ID instance
GREENAPI_API_TOKEN: Your GreenAPI API token

You can either set these in your environment or use the provided .env file (see Installation instructions).

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/whatsapp-mcp-server.git
cd whatsapp-mcp-server

# Install dependencies
pip install -e .

# Set up environment variables
cp .env-template .env
# Edit the .env file with your GreenAPI credentials

Usage

Run the MCP server:

# Install the package with development mode
pip install -e .

# Run the MCP server
whatsapp-mcp

For debugging:

whatsapp-mcp --debug

The server communicates through standard input/output streams using the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Available Tools

open_session: Open a new WhatsApp session
send_message: Send a message to a chat
get_chats: Get a list of chats
create_group: Create a new WhatsApp group
get_group_participants: Get the participants of a group

How to add it to Claude Code

To add a WhatsApp server to Claude, use the claude mcp add command:

# Add the WhatsApp MCP server
$ claude mcp add whatsapp -- whatsapp-mcp

# List existing MCP servers - Validate that the server is running
claude mcp list

# Start claude code
claude

Using with Claude

Once the WhatsApp MCP server is running, you can interact with it using Claude in your conversations:

Authenticating with WhatsApp

Login to WhatsApp

Sending a message

Send the "Hello" message to John Doe

Using with Claude Desktop

To use the WhatsApp MCP server with Claude Desktop, you need to add it to your claude_desktop_config.json file:

Using pip installation (recommended)

"mcpServers": {
  "whatsapp": {
    "command": "python",
    "args": ["-m", "whatsapp_mcp"]
  }
}

Using the executable

"mcpServers": {
  "whatsapp": {
    "command": "whatsapp-mcp"
  }
}

Using Docker

"mcpServers": {
  "whatsapp": {
    "command": "docker",
    "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "-e", "GREENAPI_ID_INSTANCE=your_instance_id", "-e", "GREENAPI_API_TOKEN=your_api_token", "whatsapp-mcp-server"]
  }
}

Remember to set your GreenAPI credentials either as environment variables or in your .env file before starting Claude Desktop.

Command-line options

The WhatsApp MCP server accepts these command-line arguments:

--debug: Increase verbosity level for debugging

Debugging

For debugging the MCP server:

Use MCP inspector: npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector whatsapp-mcp
View logs in your Claude Desktop logs directory (typically ~/Library/Logs/Claude/ on macOS)

Development

# Install development dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest

# Run linting
flake8 src/

# Run type checking
mypy src/

The project uses a modern pyproject.toml configuration which includes:

Core dependencies needed for running the application
Development dependencies available with pip install -e ".[dev]"

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

whatsapp-mcp-server