How to Connect Watobot to Claude, ChatGPT or Another AI Tool

Watobot has an MCP server. Once your AI tool is connected to it, you can ask the tool to get you onto the WhatsApp API with coexistence, and it does the checking and the typing: it tests that your endpoint receives what Meta sends, gives you the link for Meta's sign-up, requests the contacts and history sync, registers the number if needed and brings your message templates across. Later it can send messages, show how much of your daily limit is left and manage templates.

1. Create your API key

Open the API key page of the dashboard, sign in with your phone number (we send a code on WhatsApp) and click Create my API key. Copy it somewhere safe. We keep only a hash of it, so we can't show it again. If you lose it, the same page lets you replace it, and you onboard your numbers again.

2. Get your connection details

In the dashboard, choose Onboard Phone Number and then Onboard with your AI tool, paste your key and click Connect your AI tool. A window builds the address and commands for your tool right there in your browser: the key isn't sent anywhere. You get three things, each for a different kind of tool:

• an address for claude.ai and ChatGPT, which can only take an address;
• a command for Claude Code to connect to our hosted server;
• a config for tools that start a program on your computer (Claude Desktop, Cursor). It needs Node.js 20 or newer.

3. Add it to your AI tool

claude mcp add --transport http watobot https://us-central1-wa-coexistence.cloudfunctions.net/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer <your key>"

{ "mcpServers": { "watobot": {
    "command": "npx",
    "args": ["-y", "watobot-mcp"],
    "env": { "WATOBOT_API_KEY": "<your key>" }
} } }

The menus change from one plan and one release to the next, so the names above may differ a little on yours. Custom connectors need a plan that allows them (on claude.ai the free plan allows one), and on a team plan an owner may have to switch them on first. Claude.ai and ChatGPT connect from their own servers, which is why they need the hosted address and can't use the program that runs on your computer.

4. Ask it to onboard your number

You need two things before you start: the number is on the WhatsApp Business app (for coexistence), and you have an app or chatbot at a public https address that receives what WhatsApp sends. If you don't have one, our test chatbot gives you one in a minute. Then say something like:

Use Watobot to onboard my WhatsApp number to the API with coexistence. My endpoint is https://example.com/webhook.

What happens, in order:

1. Your AI tool checks that your address answers Meta's handshake, then sends you test data. Each kind (a message, an echo of one you typed in the app, contacts and history) carries a code your endpoint should show. You read the codes back, and it checks them. The data test is optional. If you only send messages and reply in the WhatsApp Business app, you can have no callback URL at all: your AI tool will tell you what that costs (no incoming messages or delivery receipts, and the contacts and history sync is skipped for good) and ask you first.
2. It gives you a link. You open it, enter your API key, and complete Meta's sign-up. When it is done, the page tells you to go back to your AI tool.
3. Back in your AI tool, it looks up the number and carries on: a coexistence number gets its contacts and history sync (Meta allows each once, within 24 hours of onboarding), an API-only number gets registered with a six-digit PIN, and your templates are copied across from your previous account or imported from an export.
4. It confirms the number is done and shows your limits.

Keep your key safe

• The address for claude.ai and ChatGPT contains your key. Treat it like the key: don't share a screenshot of the connector's settings.
• The key never goes into your chat. Your AI tool uses it behind the scenes, and our server doesn't log it.
• If an address or a config file leaks, replace the key on the API key page. Every number keeps working with the new one, and you update the key in your tool.
• You can remove the connector in your tool's settings whenever you like.

If something doesn't work

• "There is no Watobot API key yet": the key is missing from the tool's settings. Check step 2, and restart the tool after changing it.
• "Incorrect API key" or the connector won't connect: the key is mistyped or was replaced. Build the address again from the API key page.
• The tools don't show up (the program that runs on your computer): restart the tool. In Claude Code, /mcp lists what is connected.
• A send is refused with 429: you reached a limit. Ask your AI tool for your limits: it shows what is left and when each window resets.
• Meta's sign-up shows an error: see How to Get WhatsApp API Access in 5 Minutes, and tell your AI tool what the error said so it can help.