chatwire 0.2.0

macOS chat-relay bridge: iMessage <-> Telegram, web UI, and pluggable integrations

chatwire

Relay iMessages from a macOS host to other places — currently a Telegram bot and a web UI, with more integrations planned.

Originally branded chat-bridge; renamed to chatwire for v0.2.0 because PyPI's similarity check rejected chat-bridge (collides with an unrelated chatbridge package).

Status: alpha. The author runs this daily; nobody else has installed it yet. Things will change. See docs/OPEN_SOURCE_PLAN.md for the roadmap.

What it does

• Inbound. A small Python service polls ~/Library/Messages/chat.db, resolves senders against Contacts.app, and forwards messages (text, photos, videos, attachments) to your configured integrations.
• Outbound. Reply from your phone, your laptop, anywhere — the service drives Messages.app via AppleScript to send back as you.
• Group chats. First-class. Replies route by chat GUID, not the sender's 1:1 handle, so you can keep a group conversation in Telegram or the web UI and replies land back in the group.

Constraints

iMessage is Mac-only. The bridge has to live on a Mac with the user's Apple ID logged into Messages.app, granted Full Disk Access (to read chat.db) and Automation→Messages (to send). macOS gates both behind System Settings clicks that no installer can bypass — the setup wizard makes them as short as possible, but you will click through some prompts the first time.

Tested on macOS 12 Monterey. macOS 13–15 should work; not yet smoke-tested. See docs/OPEN_SOURCE_PLAN.md for the support matrix.

Install

Recommended path: pipx, against python.org's Python.

# Install python.org Python first if you don't have it:
#   https://www.python.org/downloads/macos/
# (Homebrew Python works but TCC treats it as a different identity —
# you'd have to grant Full Disk Access + Automation to that binary
# specifically. python.org is the well-trodden path.)

# Install pipx if you don't have it (once per machine):
python3 -m pip install --user pipx
python3 -m pipx ensurepath

# Install chatwire (from PyPI, once v0.2.0 ships):
pipx install --python /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin/python3 \
    chatwire

# Or from the v0.1.0 git tag (still under the old chat-bridge repo URL —
# the GitHub redirect to chatwire keeps this working):
pipx install --python /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin/python3 \
    git+https://github.com/allenbina/chatwire.git@v0.1.0

# Wire it up:
chatwire install-agents
chatwire setup

The setup wizard walks you through the Telegram bot token, the macOS permission grants (Full Disk Access + Automation→Messages), and writes ~/.chatwire/config.json.

Alternate install methods

Homebrew tap. Convenient if you already use brew. Note: the formula still ships under the old chat-bridge name in the tap; renaming the formula is tracked separately.

brew install allenbina/tap/chat-bridge
chatwire install-agents
chatwire setup

Tap source: https://github.com/allenbina/homebrew-tap.

curl-pipe-bash. No PyPI access, no Homebrew, just a shell.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/allenbina/chatwire/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Pin to a tag with CHATWIRE_REF=v0.1.0. The script refuses Xcode CLT's Python stub and warns on Homebrew Python (TCC identity protection). Same post-install steps (chatwire install-agents etc.).

Developer / git-clone path. For hacking on the bridge itself:

git clone https://github.com/allenbina/chatwire.git ~/projects/chatwire
cd ~/projects/chatwire
python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -e .

# Render and load the launchd agents:
.venv/bin/chatwire install-agents

# (legacy installs only) one-shot migration from ~/.imessage-tg/.env:
.venv/bin/chatwire migrate

# Sanity check:
.venv/bin/chatwire doctor

Configure ~/.chatwire/config.json (chmod 600). Schema:

{
  "version": 1,
  "TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN": "...",
  "TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USER_IDS": "123456789",
  "SELF_HANDLES": "+1XXXXXXXXXX,[e-mail]",
  "WEB_PORT": "8723"
}

The setup wizard (Phase 2) will write this for you. Until then it's hand-edited.

macOS permissions

Both the FDA grant and the Automation→Messages grant need to be given to the python.org Python binary (not Homebrew's), because the python.org installer ships two Mach-O binaries with different code-signing identities that TCC tracks separately. See docs/REFERENCE_INSTALL.md section 5 for the full walkthrough — that section was the reason the bridge worked at all on the first install, and it's the same on every Mac.

scripts/check-permissions.sh (or chatwire doctor) will tell you which prompts you still need to click.

Repo layout

bridge.py             telegram bot + outbound (TG -> iMessage)
chat_db.py            reads chat.db, HEIC -> JPEG via sips
chat_send.py          osascript wrappers (send_text, send_file)
prefix.py             message prefix formatter + reply parser
config.py             config.json loader (with .env fallback)
chatwire_cli.py       setup / install-agents / logs / doctor / migrate
contacts.py           Contacts.app -> handle/name lookup
echo_log.py           cross-process echo dedup
whitelist.py          runtime-mutable allowlist
_version.py           release-semver source of truth
web/                  FastAPI web UI + first-run setup wizard
migrations/           config-schema migration runner
templates/launchd/    plist templates rendered by install-agents
scripts/install.sh    curl-pipe-bash installer (alternative to brew)
docs/                 OPEN_SOURCE_PLAN.md, REFERENCE_INSTALL.md

Trademarks

iMessage, Messages, macOS, and AppleScript are trademarks of Apple Inc., referenced here in their descriptive sense — this project relays to and from Apple's iMessage service. chatwire is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple Inc.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Contributing

Not accepting PRs yet — Phase 1 is mid-flight. Open an issue if you have questions or hit a wall installing.