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.

Plugin required

Zalo Personal ships as a plugin and is not bundled with the core install.

  • Install via CLI: openclaw plugins install @openclaw/zalouser
  • Or from a source checkout: openclaw plugins install ./extensions/zalouser
  • Details: Plugins

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).

Quick setup (beginner)

  1. Install the plugin (see above).
  2. Login (QR, on the Gateway machine):
    • openclaw 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.

What it is

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

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.

Finding IDs (directory)

Use the directory CLI to discover peers/groups and their IDs:

openclaw directory self --channel zalouser
openclaw directory peers list --channel zalouser --query "name"
openclaw directory groups list --channel zalouser --query "work"

Limits

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

Access control (DMs)

channels.zalouser.dmPolicy supports: pairing | allowlist | open | disabled (default: pairing). channels.zalouser.allowFrom accepts user IDs or names. The wizard resolves names to IDs via zca friend find when available.

Approve via:

  • openclaw pairing list zalouser
  • openclaw pairing approve zalouser <code>

Group access (optional)

  • Default: channels.zalouser.groupPolicy = "open" (groups allowed). Use channels.defaults.groupPolicy to override the default when unset.
  • Restrict to an allowlist with:
    • channels.zalouser.groupPolicy = "allowlist"
    • channels.zalouser.groups (keys are group IDs or names)
  • Block all groups: channels.zalouser.groupPolicy = "disabled".
  • The configure wizard can prompt for group allowlists.
  • On startup, OpenClaw resolves group/user names in allowlists to IDs and logs the mapping; unresolved entries are kept as typed.

Example:

{
  channels: {
    zalouser: {
      groupPolicy: "allowlist",
      groups: {
        "123456789": { allow: true },
        "Work Chat": { allow: true }
      }
    }
  }
}

Multi-account

Accounts map to zca profiles. Example:

{
  channels: {
    zalouser: {
      enabled: true,
      defaultAccount: "default",
      accounts: {
        work: { enabled: true, profile: "work" }
      }
    }
  }
}

Troubleshooting

zca not found:

  • Install zca-cli and ensure it’s on PATH for the Gateway process.

Login doesn’t stick:

  • openclaw channels status --probe
  • Re-login: openclaw channels logout --channel zalouser && openclaw channels login --channel zalouser
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