Ask your WhatsApp
in plain English.
Plug Claude Code into your TimelinesAI workspace and interrogate real customer conversations the way you'd interrogate a teammate. Response time, unanswered queues, topic trends, lead intent, deep root-cause investigations — all from a chat window. No dashboards, no SQL, no code.
One real question, one real answer
Here's what a Claude Code session actually looks like with the TimelinesAI skills installed. You type the question. It pulls the data, aggregates, and answers. Then you follow up.
You
How many unanswered customer messages do we currently have, and what are the oldest five?
Claude Code
You have 14 chats with an unanswered incoming message. The oldest 5: 1. +1 555 0200 — waiting 6h 22m ("can you confirm the invoice went out?") 2. +1 555 0201 — waiting 4h 10m ("still interested — when can we talk?") 3. +1 555 0202 — waiting 3h 05m ("one more question about the trial") 4. +1 555 0203 — waiting 2h 40m ("got the quote — do you do net-30?") 5. +1 555 0204 — waiting 1h 55m ("hey, following up on our call") Want me to draft replies to each of these as private notes?
Questions like these work the same way:
Each of those is a real prompt you can paste directly into Claude Code after the install kit below. No modifications, no API calls to write, no templates to fill in.
What is Claude Code?
Claude Code is Anthropic's agent that can read documentation, call APIs, and reason over the result — which is exactly what lets it interrogate your real WhatsApp data through the TimelinesAI API instead of just answering from training data. Unlike the claude.ai chat window, Claude Code can fetch live pages, follow instructions you paste into it, and remember them across a session. That's the whole difference that matters for this guide.
Three ways to open it
Open it in your browser
The easiest way and the one we recommend for a first-time user. Same login as claude.ai — Claude Code is already there, no install, no terminal, nothing to download.
claude.ai/code →Native desktop app
macOS and Windows. Same sessions as the web, with local file access. A good next step once you're using it daily.
Download the Claude app →Full install guide
Anthropic's official walkthrough — every access method, pricing, and the terminal CLI for developers who want it. Bookmark it for your team.
claude.com/claude-code →Two things. Five minutes. No terminal.
Everything you need to start asking questions is one token and one message. You paste the message into Claude Code, it reads the docs, it answers. That's the whole setup.
- 1
Get your TimelinesAI API token
Sign in to your TimelinesAI workspace, open Integrations → Public API, and click Copy. One token covers every WhatsApp number in the workspace. If you're not signed up yet, see the detailed walkthrough right below this kit.
Open app.timelines.ai → - 2
Paste this message into Claude Code
One message, nothing else. Open Claude Code in your browser, paste the block below into the chat box, replace the placeholder with the token you just copied, and send. Claude Code will read the API docs, follow the optional skills, and answer your first question in one turn. No terminal, no git, no setup.
Here's my TimelinesAI API token: <paste your tla_... token here> Here's the API documentation: https://timelinesai.mintlify.app/public-api-reference/overview And optionally, here are ready-made instructions for how to use our API efficiently (analytics patterns, gotchas, common recipes). Follow them if they help: https://github.com/InitechSoftware/timelinesai-claude-code-skills Now: list my connected WhatsApp numbers and tell me how many unanswered customer chats I currently have.
Done. Claude Code will take it from here — read the API docs, note the optional skills, and answer your first question. The rest of this page is for developers on your team who need to go deeper. As a user, you can stop reading here and start asking questions.
Connect TimelinesAI, step by step
If you already have a TimelinesAI workspace with a WhatsApp number connected, step 1 of the install kit is a 10-second copy. If you don't — here's the full walkthrough. Four steps, no screenshots, all you need to find your way around app.timelines.ai the first time.
- 1
Sign up at app.timelines.ai
Use a work email. A workspace is created for you automatically — one workspace per organisation, with multiple WhatsApp numbers living inside it. You don't need a credit card to try it; there's a free trial that covers enough message credits to finish this guide.
- 2
Add your WhatsApp number
In the dashboard, click “Add a WhatsApp account”. A QR code appears. On the phone that holds your business number, open WhatsApp → Settings → Linked devices → Link a device, and scan the QR. Same flow as WhatsApp Web — TimelinesAI is the managed layer on top that handles session recovery, multi-device, shared inbox, and the public API you're about to use.
- 3
Confirm the number connected
Back in the dashboard, your number should show status “connected” within a few seconds of the scan. If it says “qr_required” or “disconnected”, regenerate the QR and re-scan. If it stays in “connecting” for more than 30 seconds, see the snags list below.
- 4
Copy your Public API token
Left nav → Integrations → Public API → Generate (if this is your first time) → Copy. The token starts with tla_ and is about 40–50 characters long. It covers every WhatsApp number in the workspace: chats, messages, labels, notes, files, webhooks, quotas. Treat it like a password — it doesn't expire, but regenerating invalidates the old one immediately. This is the token you paste into step 1 of the install kit above.
Common snags
- QR code says “expired” before you finish scanning. QR codes time out in about 60 seconds. Regenerate and scan immediately — if your phone's camera is slow to focus, try moving closer to the screen or increasing laptop brightness.
- Number stuck on “connecting” after the scan. Your phone needs both internet AND WhatsApp open in the foreground during the initial handshake. On Android, aggressive battery savers sometimes kill WhatsApp mid-handshake — temporarily disable battery optimisation for WhatsApp and retry.
- HTTP 401 Unauthorized on your first real question. The token got line-wrapped on paste (common in terminals). Re-copy it from the TimelinesAI dashboard in one piece, and make sure the env var has no whitespace around the value.
- HTML 404 page instead of a JSON response. You have a trailing slash on the URL somewhere — /chats/ returns a branded 404 page, /chats works. This is baked into the Claude Code skills, so it only bites if you're running raw curl commands outside of Claude Code.
When to be careful
Three things to know before you ship this to your team. The technical gotchas — API pagination, UTF-8 footguns, label-replace semantics — are baked into the companion skills so you never have to think about them. These three are strategic, not technical.
For developers: where the rest lives
This page is the user guide and the install kit. Everything deeper — the full API reference, every gotcha, the 29 analytics recipes in detail, the OpenClaw always-on variant — lives in the three resources below. If you're shipping this to a team, send these links to whoever is going to wire it up.
Claude Code skills repo →
Three ready-made SKILL.md files: the full TimelinesAI API reference, every analytics recipe, the gotchas Claude Code needs to know to produce wrong-looking-right answers, plus narrower skills for drafting replies and smoke-testing your setup. MIT-licensed. This is the first link to send any developer on your team.
github.com/InitechSoftware/timelinesai-claude-code-skills
TimelinesAI public API reference →
The official docs for every endpoint the skills use: whatsapp_accounts, chats, messages, labels, notes, files, webhooks, quotas. Request/response schemas and auth. If you or Claude Code want to build something the existing skills don't cover, start here.
timelinesai.mintlify.app/public-api-reference
OpenClaw — the always-on agent version →
This guide is pull-only: you ask questions, Claude Code answers. For an always-on agent that auto-replies to incoming messages, qualifies leads, and runs full conversational flows, see the OpenClaw companion guide and its separate skills repo. Same TimelinesAI API, different shape.
timelines.ai/guide/openclaw-whatsapp-skills
If something's missing from the skills or the guide, open an issue on the skills repo. These are living documents and get updated whenever the TimelinesAI API shifts.
Start asking
Get the skills on GitHub →Ready-made SKILL.md files covering the API reference, the gotchas, and the recipe book. Drop them into your Claude Code skills directory and ask questions. MIT licensed, maintained by TimelinesAI.
Capability guide · 2026 · Canonical URL timelines.ai/guide/claude-code-whatsapp-analytics