Introduction

Asena is an open-source WhatsApp bot written in TypeScript for Bun, built on zapo, a modern implementation of the WhatsApp Web protocol.

It runs on your own computer or server. You link a WhatsApp account to it once, and from then on it answers commands in private chats and groups.

What it does

• Group moderation: welcome and goodbye messages, anti-link, anti-spam, warnings, mute and kick, and per-group command switches.
• Media: stickers with your pack name, MP3 conversion, YouTube audio and video, text-to-speech, quote and text stickers.
• Productivity: notes, reminders, polls, event cards, status posts and Meta AI answers.
• Owner controls: public or private mode, trusted sudo users, feature flags, quiet hours, rate limits, an audit log and backups.
• Developer friendly: a command is one command({...}) call with a typed ctx, and the full zapo client is one property away.

How the pieces fit

Part	What it is
The bot	The program you run with bun start. It keeps its data in data/ (SQLite) or Postgres.
asena.fun/pair	An optional website to link WhatsApp in the browser and get a session ID.
The pairing server	The open-source Go backend behind the website. You can run your own.

You never have to use the website: the bot can show its own QR code in the terminal. The website is a convenience for setting up a bot on a machine where scanning a terminal QR code is awkward, such as a remote server.

Requirements

• Bun 1.4 or newer
• FFmpeg on your PATH for audio, video and animated stickers
• A WhatsApp account to link (a spare number is best)

Asena is not affiliated with WhatsApp. Running unofficial clients can get an account banned, so prefer a number you can afford to lose.

Next: Getting started.