whatsapp-mcp lets AI agents read your WhatsApp chats, against WhatsApp's terms

whatsapp-mcp, a free open-source project under the MIT licence, runs a small server in your own Cloudflare account that links to WhatsApp the way WhatsApp Web does, so Claude Code or any other MCP client can search and read your chats. It is read-only by design: it cannot send messages, stores photos and voice notes only as labels, and serves one person's account per setup. The developer warns that it relies on an unofficial library, Baileys, which breaks WhatsApp's terms, and calls the risk low but not zero. Importing a large chat history needs Cloudflare's Workers Paid plan, which the README puts at a few dollars a month. On Hacker News (115 points, 66 comments), 7 of the 19 top-level commenters were wary on privacy or trust grounds, two of them pointing out that the people you chat with never agreed to have their messages passed to an AI company. Four asked about or described WhatsApp bans for unofficial tools, four shared other setups or services, two called the project useful, and two raised other points, including that it is not really free. Rough consensus: a useful idea, with real risks to privacy and to your account. Sorted take: Fine for experimenting on a personal number, but don't connect a WhatsApp number your business depends on; for customer chats, use WhatsApp's official business tools.