prerequisites.md (932B)
1 --- 2 label: Prerequisites 3 order: 890 4 --- 5 6 # Prerequisites 7 8 Before you start, make sure you have the following: 9 10 1. A **GitHub** account 11 2. A **Render** account (free tier works) 12 3. A **Firebase** account (free Spark plan works) 13 4. A **WhatsApp** account on your phone 14 5. An **UptimeRobot** account (free) 15 16 ## How it fits together 17 18 - **Backend (Render + Docker)** — runs the Baileys WhatsApp listener, authenticates the frontend, and writes messages to Firestore 19 - **Database (Firebase Firestore)** — stores your chat logs 20 - **Frontend (`index.html`)** — a single static file you host anywhere (Firebase Hosting, GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel). It never talks to Firestore directly — it authenticates against and streams chat data from your Render backend only 21 - **UptimeRobot** — pings your Render backend every 5 minutes so the free tier doesn't spin down from inactivity 22 23 Continue to [Firebase Setup](firebase-setup.md).