Summarize WhatsApp Group Chats

Use the wacli CLI to fetch and summarize WhatsApp group chats. No exceptions — always use wacli.

Prerequisites

wacli is already installed and authenticated on the user's machine
If wacli commands fail with auth errors, ask the user to re-authenticate before proceeding

Step 1: Discover Available Group Chats

Before fetching messages, list available group chats to find the correct chat name or ID:

wacli groups list

If the user has specified a chat name, fuzzy-match it against the output. Confirm with the user if ambiguous, especially with similar group names.

Step 2: Fetch Messages

Default behavior: fetch the past 24 hours. Adjust if the user specifies a different time range.

# Fetch last 24 hours (default) (please update YYYY-MM-DD below for --after and --before)
wacli messages --chat "<chat-id>" --after "<YYYY-MM-DD of one day before today's date>" --before "<YYYY-MM-DD of today's date>"

# Fetch by specific date range (if user requests)
wacli messages --chat "<chat-id>" --after "YYYY-MM-DD" --before "YYYY-MM-DD"

# Fetch by message count (if user requests)
wacli messages --chat "<chat-id>" --limit 200

Capture the raw output. Note the timestamp of the oldest and newest message in the fetched data — this becomes the data freshness marker.

Step 3: Export (Optional but Default)

By default, export the raw chat to a .json file before summarizing. Filename format:

[chat-name]-YYYYMMDD.txt

Use today's date
Sanitize the chat name: lowercase, replace spaces with hyphens, strip special characters
Example: product-team-20250315.txt

wacli messages --chat "<chat-id>" --after "<YYYY-MM-DD of one day before today's date>" --before "<YYYY-MM-DD of today's date>" > "[chat-name]-YYYYMMDD.txt"

If the user specifies a different filename or path, use that instead.

If user prefers JSON, follow that by adding global --json flag to wacli.

Step 4: Summarize — Chief of Staff Style

Summarize the fetched messages. Write like a chief of staff briefing an executive: concise, structured, action-oriented. No padding, no filler.

Summary Format

## [Chat Name] — Summary
**Data covers:** [oldest message timestamp] → [newest message timestamp]
**Fetched at:** [current timestamp]

### Key Decisions
- ...

### Action Items
- [Person] — [what they need to do]

### Notable Discussions
- ...

### FYI / Context
- ...

Only include sections that have content. Skip empty sections entirely.

Summarization Rules

Never hallucinate. Every point must come directly from the fetched messages.
Do not invent names, facts, decisions, or action items. If something is unclear, say so.
Be brief. Aim for signal density — one tight sentence per point.
Attribute where it matters. For decisions and action items, note who said or owns what.
Flag urgency. If something is time-sensitive or unresolved, note it explicitly.
Ignore noise. Skip greetings, reactions, one-word replies, and off-topic banter unless they reveal something important.

Step 5: Handle User Overrides

The user may ask for changes. Always comply. Common overrides:

User Request	What to Do
Different time range	Re-fetch with `--since` / `--until` adjusted
Different language	Summarize in the requested language
More detail on a topic	Expand that section, pull specific messages
Different filename	Rename the export file
Skip export	Don't write the `.txt` file
Longer / shorter summary	Adjust verbosity accordingly
Specific people only	Filter messages by sender in summary

Whatever the user asks — as long as it's achievable via wacli and summarization — do it.

Error Handling

Error	Response
`wacli` not found	Tell user to install and authenticate `wacli` first
Auth failure	Ask user to re-run `wacli auth` or equivalent
Chat not found	List available chats with `wacli chats` and ask user to confirm
No messages in range	Say so clearly; offer to widen the time range
Empty output	Do not summarize. Report that no messages were found.

Quick Reference: wacli Commands

Usage:
  wacli messages [command]

Available Commands:
  context     Show message context around a message ID
  list        List messages
  search      Search messages (FTS5 if available; otherwise LIKE)
  show        Show one message

Flags:
  -h, --help   help for messages

Global Flags:
      --json               output JSON instead of human-readable text
      --store string       store directory (default: ~/.wacli)
      --timeout duration   command timeout (non-sync commands) (default 5m0s)

wacli chats                          # List all chats
wacli messages --chat "<chat-id>" --after "<YYYY-MM-DD of one day before today's date>" --before "<YYYY-MM-DD of today's date>" # Fetch last 24 hours (default) (please update YYYY-MM-DD below for --after and --before)

If wacli has different flags on the user's version, run wacli --help or wacli messages --help to check and adapt.

summarize-whatsapp-group-chats