Self-hosted WeChat roleplay bots wired through Tencent’s iLink
A self-hosted gateway that taps WeChat through an undocumented protocol to run AI roleplay bots with personas, stickers, and visual chat flows.
SMNETSTUDIO/WeChat-AI bypasses official APIs to graft large language models onto China’s dominant messaging platform using an observed protocol, Redis-backed state, and a deliberately anti-commercial license.

What it does WeChat-AI is a self-hosted service that connects to WeChat through Tencent’s iLink protocol to run AI roleplay bots. After logging in via LINUX DO OAuth, users scan QR codes to bind WeChat accounts, then manage bots through a web dashboard where they assign personas, approve private chat peers, and relay messages bidirectionally. The system stores tokens and stickers in remote Redis, generates replies through OpenAI-compatible LLMs, and supports inbound image understanding and voice transcription.
The interesting bit The project communicates with WeChat through iLink, an undocumented protocol the authors warn is based on observed behavior and subject to change. It also bundles a visual Chatflow editor for orchestrating bot logic, and ships under a Commons Clause license that explicitly bans commercial use, resale, and paid hosting.
Key highlights
- Direct iLink integration with Tencent (undocumented, observed protocol)
- Roleplay engine with personas, memory, stickers, and inbound image/voice handling
- P2P chat relay with an approval workflow (
/agree) and whitelist-by-default security - Visual Chatflow editor at
/chatflowas an alternative to prompt-based personas - Multi-node deployment behind a Cloudflare Worker load balancer, sharing one Redis backend
- OTA incremental updates with file diffing and automatic restart
- Apache-2.0 with Commons Clause: personal and non-commercial use only
Caveats
- iLink is undocumented and based on observed behavior; Tencent can rate-limit or terminate personal bots at any time
- Authentication is hard-wired to LINUX DO OAuth, which the README assumes you already know
- Roleplay content leaves the machine for external LLM APIs, so privacy is provider-dependent
- The license explicitly forbids commercial use, paid hosting, and resale
Verdict Worth exploring if you want to run personal AI roleplay experiments on WeChat and can accept the risks of an undocumented protocol. Look elsewhere if you need commercial rights, enterprise stability, or a choice of identity providers.
Frequently asked
- What is SMNETSTUDIO/WeChat-AI?
- A self-hosted gateway that taps WeChat through an undocumented protocol to run AI roleplay bots with personas, stickers, and visual chat flows.
- Is WeChat-AI open source?
- Yes — SMNETSTUDIO/WeChat-AI is open source, released under the Apache-2.0 license.
- What language is WeChat-AI written in?
- SMNETSTUDIO/WeChat-AI is primarily written in TypeScript.
- How popular is WeChat-AI?
- SMNETSTUDIO/WeChat-AI has 1.8k stars on GitHub.
- Where can I find WeChat-AI?
- SMNETSTUDIO/WeChat-AI is on GitHub at https://github.com/SMNETSTUDIO/WeChat-AI.