HusBot

The automated husband assistant (sending regular appreciation texts over WhatsApp with AI-generated messages).

Phase 1: Cloud setup

1. Create an DigitalOcena VM instance (Droplet, 512 MB) on the cheapest tier using Ubuntu.
2. Connect to the VM using SSH.
3. Install prerequisites:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y chromium-browser
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs

Phase 2: Project setup

mkdir husbot && cd husbot
npm init -y
npm install whatsapp-web.js qrcode-terminal node-schedule @google/generative-ai

Copy this repository's index.js into your project and update the placeholders:

• MY_NUMBER
• WIFE_NUMBER
• GEMINI_API_KEY

Optional .env settings:

• HEARTBEAT_DAYS — how often (in days) to send a heartbeat ping to your phone (default: 3)

Phase 3: Bot behavior included in index.js

• Uses LocalAuth so WhatsApp login persists after first QR scan.
• Uses Linux Chromium at /usr/bin/chromium-browser for cloud/headless runtime.
• Supports control commands by messaging yourself:
  • /status
  • /pause
  • /resume
  • /send_now
• Schedules 1–3 AI-generated appreciation messages each week at randomized day/time windows.
• Each AI-generated message is randomly written in English or German (command responses and heartbeats are always in English).
• Re-plans automatically every Sunday at 11:59 PM.
• Sends a heartbeat message to your phone every few days so you know the bot is still alive (configurable via HEARTBEAT_DAYS, default: 3).

Phase 4: Run forever with PM2

sudo npm install -g pm2
pm2 start index.js --name wife-bot
pm2 logs wife-bot

Scan the QR code from logs via WhatsApp Linked Devices. After that, the bot runs in the background continuously.

FAQ

If you run into memory problems (e.g. you use a DigitalOcean VPS with not enough RAM), think about creating swap space.

# Create a 1GB swap file
sudo fallocate -l 1G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile

# Make it permanent so it stays after a reboot
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab