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Contributing to OpenWA

Thanks for your interest in improving OpenWA! This guide covers how to get set up, the conventions we follow, and how to get a change merged. Contributions of all sizes are welcome — bug fixes, features, docs, and tests.

Project layout

OpenWA is a NestJS (backend) + React/Vite (dashboard) project:

  • src/ — the NestJS API. Feature modules under src/modules/ (session, message, webhook, queue, audit, settings, infra, …), the WhatsApp engine abstraction under src/engine/, and shared utilities under src/common/.
  • dashboard/ — the React dashboard.
  • docs/ — architecture, API specification, and operational docs.

See docs/03-system-architecture.md for the bigger picture.

Getting started

OpenWA targets Node.js 22+.

# backend
npm install
cp .env.example .env        # adjust as needed
npm run start:dev           # hot-reload, default port 2785

# dashboard (separate terminal)
cd dashboard && npm install && npm run dev

Default storage is SQLite, so no external services are required to run locally.

Before opening a pull request

Please make sure these pass locally:

npm run build               # NestJS build (tsc)
npm test                    # unit tests (Jest)
npm run lint                # ESLint
npm run format              # Prettier
npm --prefix dashboard run build   # dashboard type-check + build
  • Add or update tests for behavior changes — specs are colocated as *.spec.ts.
  • Keep each PR focused on one logical change; it makes review (and credit) much easier.
  • Update docs/ and the CHANGELOG.md [Unreleased] section when your change is user-visible. (Maintainers own version stamping and release cutting.)

Conventions

  • Commits: Conventional Commits — feat(...), fix(...), docs(...), chore(...), etc.
  • Style: single quotes, 2-space indentation, 120-column width, semicolons — all enforced by Prettier + ESLint. Run npm run format before committing.
  • Types: explicit types, avoid any.
  • Requests: validate request bodies with DTOs + class-validator.
  • Errors & logging: throw NestJS HTTP exceptions; use the project LoggerService (createLogger) rather than console.*.
  • Database: changes to the persisted (data) schema need a TypeORM migration under src/database/migrations/.

Scope notes (please read before large PRs)

  • The default engine is whatsapp-web.js. Some capabilities are engine-limited — for example, interactive Buttons / List messages are not supported on whatsapp-web.js, so PRs adding them won't function against the default engine.
  • The REST API is the public contract. Please avoid changing response shapes or status codes without opening an issue to discuss first.
  • For substantial architectural changes (new frameworks, large rewrites), please open an issue to align on the approach before investing the work.

Reporting issues

Use the Bug report or Feature request issue templates — the structured fields (version, deployment, engine, logs, reproduction) make triage much faster. For security vulnerabilities, see SECURITY.md — please do not open a public issue.

Code of conduct

This project follows the Contributor Covenant. By participating, you're expected to uphold it.

License

By contributing, you agree that your contributions are licensed under the project's MIT License.