Run your team from WhatsApp

Coming in the next update

This lesson needs askTheodor 0.9.283 or later.

You don’t have to be at your desk to run your team. With the phone console you write to your workers from WhatsApp, the same way you’d text a colleague. You hand out tasks, approve drafts by code and get the results pushed back to you.

What you’ll learn

• How to pair WhatsApp and turn on the phone console.
• The first commands: help, then tasks → show → approve.
• How to talk to one worker (@name, then end) or brief a company’s CEO (#company).
• How to choose what happens to messages other people send to your number.

An unofficial bridge

askTheodor drives WhatsApp Web through whatsapp-web.js. WhatsApp doesn’t endorse this, and heavy use can get a number banned. Use a number you control. If you’d rather use an official route, Telegram takes five minutes.

Before you start

• Node.js 18 or newer on the computer that runs askTheodor. The first pairing installs the bridge’s components on its own.
• WhatsApp on your phone.
• Connect a number on one machine only. If two machines polled the same number, they’d take each other’s messages. The machine that has the channel still reaches the workers on your other machines through the fleet.

1. Pair WhatsApp

1. Open Settings → Channels. Under Add a channel, click the WhatsApp card. A new row appears under Configured channels.
2. Tick Enabled on that row, then click ▾ Configure.
3. Leave Session name blank. It only identifies the saved login; it isn’t a display name. You’d change it only for a second number.
4. Click 🔗 Pair (scan QR). The first time, the app prepares the bridge (up to a minute). WhatsApp Web then starts in the background, and the first QR can take up to 2 minutes.
5. On your phone, open WhatsApp → Settings → Linked devices → Link a device, and scan the code.

When it works, the row shows ● Linked with your number.

If the bridge won’t start

Open ▸ Advanced and set the Node path (for example /usr/local/bin/node). An app started from the Finder doesn’t always find the node your terminal uses. 🔓 Log out / new QR unlinks the number and shows a fresh code, if you ever need to pair again.

2. Keep your private chats private

In the same form, under Messages other people send to this number, leave 🔒 Private selected. askTheodor then ignores everyone else: it doesn’t store their messages and doesn’t answer them. Click 💾 Save.

You’ll meet the other two modes at the end of this lesson.

3. Turn on the phone console

At the top of the Channels tab is the 📱 Phone console panel.

1. Click Set up.
2. Tick Let my own number/address command the team.
3. Click + Add my number / address. Pick your WhatsApp channel in the dropdown, and type your own number, e.g. +49 151 …. The number is matched with or without the country code.
4. Leave Push results, replies, failures and new drafts to my phone on, and pick an hour next to Daily report at.
5. Click Save, then 📲 Send me a test. A message should arrive on your phone.

Only the addresses in this list can command your team. The first one also receives the pushes and the daily report.

4. Say hello

Before you pick up the phone, try the Try it here — exactly what your phone would get box at the bottom of the panel. Type help and click Send: you get the command list, just as your phone would.

Now open WhatsApp on your phone and go to your “Message yourself” chat, the chat with your own number. Write:

help

The reply arrives in the same chat, usually within a minute. Anything that isn’t a command goes to Theodor, who answers, delegates and follows up:

hi, what's on today?

If a job takes a worker longer than about 25 seconds, you first get ”⏳ … is working on it”, and the answer follows.

5. Review and approve by code

tasks

tasks lists what waits for you: drafts to approve, campaigns, tool approvals, plans waiting for a go, lead replies, and messages people sent you. Each line starts with a short code:

✍️ Drafts to approve (1):
3f2a9c 📧 Acme → info@weber.de · Ihr MVP in 6 Wochen

Then:

You write	What happens
show 3f2a9c	The full text of that item.
approve 3f2a9c	Approves it: a draft is sent (or queued), a plan starts, a tool call goes ahead.
approve 3f2a9c 81bd04	Several at once. Each is still approved on its own.
reject 3f2a9c	Rejects it.
edit 3f2a9c <new text>	Replaces a draft’s text. Approve it afterwards.
done 3f2a9c	Marks a lead reply as handled.

Approving from your phone is the same owner approval as clicking in the app. Nothing goes out in bulk: every outreach message is still approved one by one.

6. Talk to one worker, or brief a company

@Sarah draft the offer for Weber

@name starts a one-to-one with that worker. Your next plain messages keep going to Sarah until you write end (or @theodor). After three quiet hours, plain messages go back to Theodor on their own. You don’t need the full name; if several workers match, you’ll be asked to be more specific.

#Acme find 20 leads in Wien
#all weekly status please

#company briefs that company’s CEO, who delegates to the team. #all briefs every CEO. list shows your companies, CEOs and workers, including the ones on remote machines. Write @Sarah@vps … to reach a worker on a paired machine; that answer arrives when it’s done.

7. The rest of the toolbox

• report: the report right now, per company: new leads, messages sent, replies, drafts waiting and plans running.
• status: autonomy on or off, workers, routines, failing routines, machines.
• pause / resume: the kill switch for all unattended work, on every machine.

With pushes on, news arrives batched once a minute: finished plans, answers from remote machines, lead replies, failures, and counts of new drafts and approvals. Reply tasks to see them. The daily report comes at the hour you chose.

8. Choose a mode for other people’s messages

Back in Settings → Channels → WhatsApp → ▾ Configure:

Mode	What happens to messages from anyone who isn’t you
🔒 Private	Ignored. Not stored, not answered. The right choice for your personal number.
🗂 Secretary	Each message is noted as a request and passed to you with a code. askTheodor never acts on it. See Let a secretary take messages.
🤖 Handled by workers	The routing rules decide which worker answers. Use this only for a dedicated askTheodor number that customers write to.

Press 💾 Save after changing.

The test field takes a phone number

📨 Send test message sends one message to the number you type there. It isn’t how you talk to your agents; that happens in WhatsApp itself.

Try it

1. In “Message yourself”, write list.
2. Pick a worker and write @<name> what are you working on?, then end.
3. Write tasks. If something is waiting, show it and approve or reject it.
4. Write pause, check status, then resume.

Recap

You paired WhatsApp, turned on the phone console with your own number, and ran the team from the “Message yourself” chat. Plain text goes to Theodor, @ and # reach one worker or a CEO, and tasks → show → approve clears your queue. Next: the same console over an official Telegram bot.

📖 Reference in the docs: Phone console · Channels

➡️ Next: Your own Telegram bot in 5 minutes