go-notification

What WAHA is

WAHA is an open-source WhatsApp HTTP API you run yourself via Docker. Your messages, media, and session data stay on your own infrastructure. It wraps the WhatsApp Web protocol and exposes a clean HTTP interface.

Project: https://waha.devlike.pro
GitHub: https://github.com/devlikeapro/waha (6k+ stars).

Ban risk

WAHA uses the unofficial WhatsApp Web protocol. Using unofficial APIs is against WhatsApp's Terms of Service and carries a real risk of the number being banned. It's widely used, but not sanctioned by Meta. Use at your own discretion.

Pricing

WAHA Core — free forever, single session.
WAHA Plus — around $15/month, supports multiple sessions, a dashboard, and proxy configuration.

Prerequisites

Docker installed on your server.
A WhatsApp account on your phone (you'll scan a QR code with it).

Step 1 — Run WAHA

terminal.sh

docker run -it -p 3000:3000 devlikeapro/waha

For production, put it behind a reverse proxy (Caddy / Nginx) with TLS and an auth layer.

Step 2 — Connect WhatsApp

Open http://localhost:3000/dashboard in your browser.
Start a session.
Scan the QR code with the WhatsApp app on your phone.

The session persists across restarts as long as you mount a volume for WAHA's data directory.

Step 3 — Register the driver

main.go

import "github.com/gopackx/go-notification/channel/whatsapp/waha"

notifier.RegisterChannel("whatsapp", waha.New(waha.Config{
    BaseURL:   "http://localhost:3000",
    APIKey:    os.Getenv("WAHA_API_KEY"),
    SessionID: "default",
}))

Sending

main.go

func (n OrderShipped) Via(u notification.Notifiable) []string {
    return []string{"whatsapp"}
}

func (n OrderShipped) ToWhatsApp(u notification.Notifiable) *whatsapp.Message {
    return whatsapp.NewMessage().
        Text("Hi, your order " + n.OrderID + " has shipped.")
}

func (u User) RouteNotificationFor(channel string) any {
    if channel == "whatsapp" {
        return u.Phone // E.164 format, e.g. "628123456789"
    }
    return nil
}

Configuration reference

Field	Type	Required	Description
`BaseURL`	`string`	yes	Where your WAHA instance is running (`http://host:3000`).
`APIKey`	`string`	yes	API key configured in your WAHA install. Required for Plus.
`SessionID`	`string`	yes	Session name. `"default"` unless you run multiple sessions.
`Timeout`	`time.Duration`	no	HTTP timeout per send. Default: `30s`.

Operational tips

Persist the session volume. If you don't, you re-scan the QR code every restart.
Run only on a trusted network. WAHA's admin dashboard doesn't have fine-grained auth on the free tier.
Watch for disconnects. The WhatsApp Web protocol expects your phone to be online — periodic reconnects are normal.
Back off on errors. If WAHA starts returning 429s, you're being rate-limited on the WhatsApp side. Slow down.

WAHA (Self-Hosted)