wa-deploy

wa-deploy — Take the bot live

Goal: get the bot onto a public HTTPS URL so Wasender can deliver webhooks to it. Render.com is the default — free tier is enough for a personal bot, and the deploy is a single CLI call.

Speak Hebrew. Ask before doing anything that costs money or makes the bot reachable.

Step 1 — Frame the deploy

הבוט שלך מוכן. עכשיו נעלה אותו לאוויר.

נשתמש ב-Render.com — שירות שמריץ את הבוט בענן. יש להם תוכנית חינמית שמספיקה לרוב המקרים. אם הבוט הופך עמוס נשדרג ל-$7 לחודש.

מוכן?

Step 2 — Push the bot to GitHub

The bot needs to live in a Git repo for Render to deploy it.

Ask:

יש לך חשבון GitHub?

1. כן, ואני מחובר ל-gh CLI כאן
2. כן, אבל לא מחובר
3. אין לי

For 1: skip ahead. For 2: tell them to run gh auth login and come back. For 3: walk them through creating one at github.com/signup, then gh auth login.

Then:

cd bot
git init
git add .
git commit -m "initial commit: WhatsApp agent generated by WhatsApp Agent Builder"
gh repo create wa-bot-${BOT_NAME_SLUG} --private --source . --remote origin --push

Capture the repo URL from gh output. Tell the user:

יצרתי לך ריפו פרטי ב-GitHub: {repo_url}. הקוד שלך נשמר שם.

Step 3 — Sign up at Render

Ask:

יש לך חשבון Render?

1. כן
2. לא — נירשם עכשיו

For 2:

1. גש ל https://render.com/register
2. הירשם עם GitHub (הכי קל) או אימייל.
3. כשסיימת, תגיד לי "מוכן".

Step 4 — Get a Render API key

בשביל לפרוס מכאן, אצטריך מפתח API של Render:

1. גש ל https://dashboard.render.com/u/settings#api-keys
2. צור מפתח חדש בשם "claude-code".
3. הדבק כאן.

Save to project-root .env as RENDER_API_KEY. Don't echo back.

Step 5 — Create the Render service

Use the Render API (POST /v1/services). The bot is a web_service.

Render API schema notes (verified live, 2026-05):

• envVars is top-level in the request body, not inside serviceDetails.
• buildCommand and startCommand go inside serviceDetails.envSpecificDetails (NOT top-level, NOT serviceDetails directly). Putting them at the top level returns "buildCommand is required for non-static, non-docker services" even though they're set there.
• pythonVersion also goes inside envSpecificDetails.
• Use runtime: "python" (not the older env: "python" — Render accepts both but runtime is the current key).

Use Python to build the JSON body so secrets stay in env vars and never appear in shell command output:

set -a; source "$ENV_FILE"; set +a
export OWNER_ID="..."  # from GET /v1/owners

python <<'PYEOF' > /tmp/render_create.json
import json, os
body = {
    "type": "web_service",
    "name": "wa-bot-" + os.environ["BOT_NAME_SLUG"],
    "ownerId": os.environ["OWNER_ID"],
    "repo": os.environ["GITHUB_REPO_URL"],
    "branch": "main",
    "autoDeploy": "yes",
    "rootDir": "",
    "envVars": [
        {"key": "WASENDER_API_KEY", "value": os.environ["WASENDER_API_KEY"]},
        {"key": "WASENDER_WEBHOOK_SECRET", "value": os.environ["WASENDER_WEBHOOK_SECRET"]},
        {"key": "WASENDER_ACCOUNT_PROTECTION", "value": "true"},
        {"key": "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY", "value": os.environ["ANTHROPIC_API_KEY"]},
        {"key": "LLM_MODEL", "value": "claude-haiku-4-5"},
        {"key": "MAX_HISTORY", "value": "20"},
    ],
    "serviceDetails": {
        "runtime": "python",
        "plan": "free",
        "region": "singapore",  # frankfurt for Israel, oregon for Americas, singapore for Asia
        "envSpecificDetails": {
            "pythonVersion": "3.12.7",
            "buildCommand": "pip install -r requirements.txt",
            "startCommand": "uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port $PORT",
        },
        "healthCheckPath": "/healthz",
    },
}
print(json.dumps(body))
PYEOF

curl -s -X POST "https://api.render.com/v1/services" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RENDER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d @/tmp/render_create.json
rm -f /tmp/render_create.json

OWNER_ID comes from GET /v1/owners first:

curl -s "https://api.render.com/v1/owners" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RENDER_API_KEY" | jq -r '.[0].owner.id'

Region: pick frankfurt for Israeli users (lowest latency to most Israeli ISPs), oregon for Americas, singapore for Asia/Pacific.

Save the returned service.id and service.serviceDetails.url to .wa-state.json as render_service_id and render_url.

Step 6 — Wait for the build

Poll GET /v1/services/{id}/deploys?limit=1 until status becomes live. Show progress in Hebrew:

בונה... (~2 דקות) מתקין תלויות... מפעיל... 🎉 הבוט באוויר ב: {render_url}

Verify:

curl -s "$RENDER_URL/healthz"

Expect {"status":"ok"}. If it fails, fetch the latest deploy logs (GET /v1/services/{id}/deploys/{deployId}/events) and surface the error in Hebrew.

Step 7 — Register the webhook URL with Wasender

Now the critical bit: tell Wasender where to deliver inbound messages.

Branch on setup_path from .wa-state.json:

Path A (PAT available) — programmatic

curl -sX PUT "https://www.wasenderapi.com/api/whatsapp-sessions/$WASENDER_SESSION_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WASENDER_PAT" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "webhook_url": "'$RENDER_URL'/webhook/wasender",
    "webhook_enabled": true,
    "webhook_events": ["messages.received", "session.status"]
  }'

Verify:

curl -sX GET "https://www.wasenderapi.com/api/whatsapp-sessions/$WASENDER_SESSION_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WASENDER_PAT" | jq '.data.webhook_url'

Should return the Render URL.

Path B (no PAT, dashboard-managed session) — manual

The user has to set the webhook URL via the dashboard. Tell them (in Hebrew):

עכשיו רק תעדכן את ה-Webhook ב-Wasender ידנית:

1. גש ל-https://wasenderapi.com/dashboard ופתח את הסשן שלך.
2. לחץ על Manage Webhook (כפתור ימני עליון).
3. הדבק את הכתובת הזו בשדה Webhook URL: {RENDER_URL}/webhook/wasender
4. סמן את האירוע messages.received (וגם session.status אם רוצים התראה על ניתוקים).
5. חשוב: וודא שהשדה Webhook Secret זהה למה שיש ב-.env שלך (WASENDER_WEBHOOK_SECRET). אם לא, או החלף את אחד מהם, או צור חדש בשני המקומות.
6. לחץ Save.

תגיד לי "שמרתי" ואבדוק שהכל עובד.

Wait for confirmation. Then proceed to step 8.

Step 8 — Real round-trip test

Tell the user:

הכל מוכן. שלח עכשיו הודעה אמיתית מהטלפון שלך אל {WASENDER_PHONE}. אני אבדוק שהבוט קיבל וענה.

Wait 30 seconds. Then check Render logs:

curl -s "https://api.render.com/v1/services/$RENDER_SERVICE_ID/logs?limit=20" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RENDER_API_KEY"

Look for the inbound webhook line. If found and the user confirms they received a reply on their phone:

🚀 הבוט שלך חי! מספר {WASENDER_PHONE} עונה עכשיו אוטומטית.

If no inbound seen after 60 seconds, run the diagnostic from wa-maintain (don't make the user wait — proactively diagnose).

Step 9 — Update state

Update .wa-state.json:

{
  "current_stage": "connect",
  "completed_stages": ["setup", "characterize", "build", "deploy"],
  "render_service_id": "<id>",
  "render_url": "<url>",
  "last_updated": "<ISO>"
}

Tell the user:

השלבים הבאים אופציונליים — להוסיף לבוט יכולות נוספות (יומן, מייל, תזכורות מתמשכות) או לבחור איפה ההיסטוריה נשמרת. רוצה להמשיך, או לעצור כאן?

If they want more: route to wa-connect. If stop: route to wa-maintain (idle mode).

Common pitfalls

• Render free tier sleeps after 15 min idle. First message after sleep takes ~30s to wake. Mention this to the user. Suggest the $7 paid tier if always-on matters.
• 404 immediately after a fresh deploy. Even on first deploy, Render's edge can return 404 Not Found (10 bytes, plain text) for ~10–60s while the service is still spinning up internally. The deploy-status API may already say live while curl gets 404s. Don't panic and don't redeploy — wait 30s and retry /healthz. If it's still 404 after 90s, then something is genuinely wrong (check GET /v1/services/{id} for suspended, and check deploy events).
• Build fails on Python version. If Render reports "no matching Python", check .python-version and/or set PYTHON_VERSION=3.12.7 env var on the service.
• Webhook signature mismatch. Triple-check WASENDER_WEBHOOK_SECRET env var on Render matches the one Wasender returned at session-create time. If user regenerated the secret in dashboard, update both Render env and bot/.env locally.
• Wasender returns 422 on PUT session. Some fields may be read-only. If updating webhook fails, try POST /api/whatsapp-sessions/{id}/webhook (some accounts have a dedicated webhook endpoint — verify in their dashboard).
• Account protection rate limits. With account_protection: true, the bot can only send 1 message per 5 seconds. If a long reply gets split into multiple sends (or there's a burst), they'll queue. Mention this if user complains "the bot sometimes feels slow."