Aura bridge blacklist numbers in WhatsApp

Introduction

A call loop between two phone numbers occurs when both numbers have automated systems (such as voicemail, auto-reply or call-forwarding) that continuously trigger each other in response to calls. In this situation, each number responds to the other’s automatic actions, creating an endless cycle of calls back and forth.

aura-bridge manages a mechanism to stop call loops for numbers that have autoreply activated.

Configuration

The mechanism for stopping call loops is configured as follows:

• The numbers with autoreply response must be identified and included in the aura-bridge environment variable AURA_BRIDGE_WA_BLACKLISTED_NUMBERS.
• Afterwards, it is necessary to restart the pod for this configuration to be refreshed.
• The Operations Team must remove the number from the list and reboot again, since it is a mechanism to stop the loop at a certain time. Otherwise, the list would grow exponentially and would not be programmatically viable.

Additionally to using this aura-bridge mechanism, a recommendation is to manage externally numbers with autoreply activated to limit them and consequently prevent call loops from ocurring.

When this configuration is set, if the from field of a message matches a number included in the blacklist, then aura-bridge avoids processing the message, thus preventing call loops.