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Zalo Personal (unofficial)

Status: experimental. This integration automates a personal Zalo account via zca-cli.
Warning: This is an unofficial integration and may result in account suspension/ban. Use at your own risk.

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Plugin required

Zalo Personal ships as a plugin and is not bundled with the core install.
  • Install via CLI: clawdbot plugins install @clawdbot/zalouser
  • Or from a source checkout: clawdbot plugins install ./extensions/zalouser
  • Details: Plugins

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Prerequisite: zca-cli

The Gateway machine must have the zca binary available in PATH.
  • Verify: zca --version
  • If missing, install zca-cli (see extensions/zalouser/README.md or the upstream zca-cli docs).

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Quick setup (beginner)

  1. Install the plugin (see above).
  2. Login (QR, on the Gateway machine):
    • clawdbot channels login --channel zalouser
    • Scan the QR code in the terminal with the Zalo mobile app.
  3. Enable the channel:
{
  channels: {
    zalouser: {
      enabled: true,
      dmPolicy: "pairing"
    }
  }
}
  1. Restart the Gateway (or finish onboarding).
  2. DM access defaults to pairing; approve the pairing code on first contact.

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What it is

  • Uses zca listen to receive inbound messages.
  • Uses zca msg ... to send replies (text/media/link).
  • Designed for “personal account” use cases where Zalo Bot API is not available.

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Naming

Channel id is zalouser to make it explicit this automates a personal Zalo user account (unofficial). We keep zalo reserved for a potential future official Zalo API integration.

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Finding IDs (directory)

Use the directory CLI to discover peers/groups and their IDs: 
clawdbot directory self --channel zalouser
clawdbot directory peers list --channel zalouser --query "name"
clawdbot directory groups list --channel zalouser --query "work"

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Limits

  • Outbound text is chunked to ~2000 characters (Zalo client limits).
  • Streaming is blocked by default.

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Access control (DMs)

channels.zalouser.dmPolicy supports: pairing | allowlist | open | disabled (default: pairing). Approve via:
  • clawdbot pairing list zalouser
  • clawdbot pairing approve zalouser <code>

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Multi-account

Accounts map to zca profiles. Example: 
{
  channels: {
    zalouser: {
      enabled: true,
      defaultAccount: "default",
      accounts: {
        work: { enabled: true, profile: "work" }
      }
    }
  }
}

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Troubleshooting

zca not found:
  • Install zca-cli and ensure it’s on PATH for the Gateway process.
Login doesn’t stick:
  • clawdbot channels status --probe
  • Re-login: clawdbot channels logout --channel zalouser && clawdbot channels login --channel zalouser