What is the WhatsApp Integration?
Connecting WhatsApp gives you a mobile interface to AIDA. You can chat with your AI agent, receive morning briefings, and interact with all your tools — directly from WhatsApp on your phone.
What You Need
- A Meta Business Account (free)
- A WhatsApp Business phone number (provided by Meta, or your own)
- Your AIDA instance accessible via HTTPS (a domain with SSL — see the HTTPS setup guide)
Step 1 — Create a Meta App
- Go to developers.facebook.com and log in
- Click My Apps → Create App
- Select Business as the app type
- Name it something like "AIDA WhatsApp" and click Create
- On the app dashboard, find WhatsApp and click Set Up
Step 2 — Get Your Credentials
From the WhatsApp section of your Meta app dashboard:
- Phone Number ID — found under WhatsApp → API Setup. This identifies which phone number sends messages.
- Access Token — click Generate under Temporary Access Token, or create a permanent one under System Users for production use.
- Verify Token — you choose this yourself (any string). You'll enter the same value in both Meta and AIDA.
Step 3 — Configure in AIDA
- Open AIDA → Settings
- Enter your WhatsApp Phone Number ID
- Enter your WhatsApp Access Token
- Enter your WhatsApp Verify Token (the string you chose)
- Click Save
Step 4 — Set Up the Webhook in Meta
- In your Meta app dashboard, go to WhatsApp → Configuration
- Set the Callback URL to:
https://your-aida-domain.com/api/whatsapp/webhook - Set the Verify Token to the same string you entered in AIDA
- Click Verify and Save
- Under Webhook Fields, subscribe to messages
Step 5 — Test It
Open WhatsApp on your phone and send a message to your WhatsApp Business number. AIDA should reply within a few seconds.
Try:
- "What's on my calendar today?"
- "Summarize my unread emails"
- "What's the weather in your city?"
Files AIDA creates in chat are delivered to WhatsApp as real attachments (up to 100 MB — larger files arrive as a download link). CSV files arrive typed as CSV; if WhatsApp Web saves one as name.csv.txt, that is the WhatsApp client, not AIDA.
Morning Briefings via WhatsApp
You can configure cron jobs to deliver morning briefings to WhatsApp. See the Cron Jobs guide for setup. When creating a briefing, specify WhatsApp as the delivery channel.
Troubleshooting
AIDA doesn't respond to WhatsApp messages — Check that the webhook URL is correct and your AIDA instance is accessible via HTTPS. Verify the webhook in Meta's dashboard shows a green checkmark.
"Config incomplete" in logs — One or more of the three required fields (Phone Number ID, Access Token, Verify Token) is missing. Check Settings.
Messages are delayed — Meta's webhook delivery can occasionally be slow. If delays are consistent, check your server's response time and logs with sudo docker logs aida --tail 50.
Temporary access token expired — Meta's temporary tokens expire after 24 hours. Create a permanent System User token for production use.