Problem

When Clawdbot processes incoming WhatsApp messages, it automatically marks them as read (sends read receipts). This happens for all messages, including group chats.

This is problematic because:

• Users lose visibility into which messages are actually new/unread
• The read receipt is sent even if the user hasn't personally seen the message
• There's no way to disable this behavior

Current behavior

In src/web/inbound.ts, messages are unconditionally marked as read:

if (id && !isSelfChat) {
  await sock.readMessages([
    { remoteJid, id, participant, fromMe: false },
  ]);
}

Proposed solution

Add a sendReadReceipts option to the WhatsApp config, similar to what already exists for Signal:

{
  "whatsapp": {
    "sendReadReceipts": false
  }
}

When false, Clawdbot should skip the sock.readMessages() call.

Reference

Signal already has this option in src/config/types.ts:

sendReadReceipts?: boolean;

Would be great to have parity for WhatsApp.

Environment

• Clawdbot version: 2026.1.5-3
• Platform: macOS