Three layers of login hardening pulled together — addresses the
"don't let middleman / robot easily log in by mimicking headers"
follow-up.
1. AES-256-GCM session cookie (apps/web/src/lib/auth-cookie.ts)
The old format was base64-encoded JSON + HMAC-SHA256 signature, so
anyone with the cookie could read userId/role straight off the
bytes. Switched to AES-GCM authenticated encryption: the payload
is encrypted with a 256-bit key derived from AUTH_SECRET via
SHA-256, a fresh 12-byte nonce is drawn per encryption (never
reused — locked in by test), and tampering with either the IV or
ciphertext fails the GCM auth tag → decrypt throws → null.
Cookie format: <base64url(iv)>.<base64url(ciphertext+tag)>
Existing cookies become invalid on deploy because the IV portion
doesn't decode to 12 bytes — middleware bounces them to /login.
No env bump needed; users just sign in once with the new secret.
2. Three-layer rate limit on loginAction
Old: per-IP only. An attacker with a residential-proxy pool or
spoofed X-Forwarded-For could hop IPs and brute one account.
New: Promise.all of three checkRateLimit calls
- per-IP login:<ip> 10 / 5 min
- per-username login-user:<lower> 5 / 15 min
- global login-global 100 / min (backstop)
First-hit wins; logger captures which limit tripped (ip / username
/ global) without telling the attacker which one.
3. Action-level Origin/Host check
serverActions.allowedOrigins already does this at the framework
layer; running it inside loginAction lets us log the mismatch and
reject before bcrypt + DB. Missing Origin treated as same-origin
(RFC: same-origin POSTs may omit it). Malformed Origin → reject.
Tests:
- auth-cookie.test.ts updated to AES-GCM (15 tests, +4 vs HMAC):
fresh IV per encryption, ciphertext doesn't leak userId/role,
IV-swap rejected, ciphertext-tamper rejected, wrong-length IV
rejected, malformed b64 doesn't throw.
- auth.test.ts adds 7 new cases: three-layer key shape, per-username
limit alone trips, global limit alone trips, cross-origin rejected,
same-origin accepted, missing-Origin treated as same-origin,
malformed-Origin rejected.
Web suite 453 → 463 tests, all green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
cm WhatsApp Reminder Bot
Self-hosted WhatsApp reminder bot. Pair multiple WhatsApp accounts via a browser-based PWA, schedule recurring reminders to groups, and watch the run history all from a phone home-screen icon.
Status
Plans 1, 2, and 3 complete. The web app at wabot.04080616.xyz is
the primary control surface; the Telegram bot has been removed.
What's working today:
- Self-hosted Next.js 16 PWA — installable on a phone home screen. Mobile-first single-row header with a slide-out drawer; desktop sidebar.
- Live QR pairing — server-side Baileys session feeds the QR payload directly into the browser via Server-Sent Events. Scan, see "✅ Connected" within seconds, auto-redirect.
- Multi-account, multi-group reminders — 5-step wizard (Account → Message → When → Groups → Review) plus per-section edit pages so you don't have to walk the wizard end-to-end to fix one field. Active recurrence picker covers Daily / Weekly / Monthly / Yearly with multi-rule support and per-rule fire-time pickers; the rendered description reads as plain English ("Every week on Mon, Wed, Fri at 09:00") not raw cron.
- Multi-message stacks — a reminder can carry multiple ordered parts (text + media), fired in sequence with a 1.5 s gap. Media files swap at any time from the Edit Message page.
- Smart media handling — per-kind WhatsApp size caps (5 MB image,
16 MB video/audio, 100 MB document). HEIC photos and
.movvideos fall back to the document delivery path so they reach the recipient as a downloadable file instead of failing silently. - Swipe-to-act rows — on mobile, swipe a reminder or activity row left for Delete or right for Pause/Restart/Archive. iOS-Mail style.
- Activity tab — last 200 runs with status filters (Success / Partial / Failed / Skipped) plus an Archived tab. Archive a noisy run to keep the main list readable; restore later. Hard-delete always available. Run history survives a reminder deletion.
- Auto-reconnect on transient drops; restart-survival via Baileys session persistence. Pair once, the device stays linked across container restarts.
- All actions audited. Reminder run history queryable from the UI; per-run target results (sent / failed / skipped) preserved even when the underlying group is removed.
Test count: 249 web + 31 shared + 26 bot = 306 passing.
Host requirements
Only Docker. No host Node, pnpm, or any other language toolchain —
everything runs in containers via the long-lived tools sidecar.
Architecture in one paragraph
Two app containers and one external dependency. bot (Node.js) holds
the live Baileys WhatsApp sessions, the pg-boss scheduler, and a
Postgres LISTEN bot.command consumer. web (Next.js 16 App Router
- React 19) is stateless UI: Server Components for reads, Server
Actions for mutations, an SSE endpoint for live updates,
@serwist/nextfor the PWA shell.toolsis a long-running Node 22 + pnpm sidecar used for installs / tests / typechecks / migrations so the host doesn't need a Node toolchain. Postgres lives external at192.168.0.210in awabotdatabase. All cross-service communication goes through Postgres (LISTEN/NOTIFYfor events, table writes for state).
Full design spec:
docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-09-web-app-design.md
Quick start (dev)
Prerequisites: Docker, the wabot database + waBot role on
192.168.0.210 (with a pg_hba.conf line permitting
192.168.0.0/24).
# 1. Configure env
cp envs/.env.example .env.development
# edit .env.development: real DATABASE_URL, plus the LAN host to expose
scripts/gen_auth_secret.sh --write
# 2. Bring up the stack, install deps
NO_SUDO=1 scripts/dev.sh up
NO_SUDO=1 scripts/dev.sh pnpm install
# 3. Apply migrations and seed your operator row
NO_SUDO=1 scripts/db.sh migrate
NO_SUDO=1 scripts/db.sh seed
# 4. Open the web app
# Local: http://localhost:9000
# LAN: http://<host-ip>:9000 (e.g. http://192.168.0.253:9000)
# Public: https://wabot.04080616.xyz (whatever your reverse proxy serves)
Pair an account: /accounts → "New Account" → enter a label →
"Pair WhatsApp" → scan the QR with WhatsApp's "Linked Devices".
PWA install: phone Chrome → menu → "Install App" / "Add to Home Screen". Launches fullscreen.
NO_SUDO=1 is the right setting if your user is in the docker
group (the default for this repo). Drop it if you need sudo docker.
Manual test runbook
End-to-end checks that unit tests can't cover (live Baileys,
WhatsApp delivery, swipe gestures):
docs/superpowers/specs/manual-test-web.md.
Layout
apps/bot/— Baileys WhatsApp + pg-boss scheduler + LISTEN/NOTIFY command consumerapps/web/— Next.js 16 App Router PWApackages/db/— Drizzle schema and migrationspackages/shared/— cross-app helpers (rrule, media paths, timezones, WhatsApp media classifier)docs/superpowers/specs/— design specs and manual test runbooksdocs/superpowers/plans/— implementation plansdocker/— Dockerfiles (tools.Dockerfile,bot.Dockerfile,web.Dockerfile)scripts/—dev.sh,db.sh,gen_auth_secret.sh
Scripts
All pnpm/tsx/drizzle-kit invocations run inside the tools
container, so no host Node is needed.
| Script | Purpose |
|---|---|
scripts/dev.sh up|down|logs|status|build|exec|pnpm|shell|restart-bot |
Stack lifecycle and tools-container shell |
scripts/db.sh migrate|generate|studio|seed|reset |
Drizzle migration helper |
scripts/gen_auth_secret.sh [--write] |
Generate AUTH_SECRET (host-only, no Node needed) |
Set NO_SUDO=1 if your user is in the docker group (recommended).
Deferred
- Standalone media library browser (currently media is uploaded per-reminder).
- E2E browser tests (Playwright) on the swipe and pairing flows.
- Auth (passkeys / email-password) — bring back if URL exposure becomes a concern. Today the app trusts whatever's in front of the reverse proxy.
- Multi-operator — schema supports
operator_idon every row, but the seed runs as a single operator and there's no /signup or invite flow yet.