NanoClaw has supported iMessage for a while — but it required your own Mac, your own Apple ID, and your own iMessage. We worked with the NanoClaw team to add hosted iMessage through Photon, so NanoClaw agents can now send and receive iMessages on any OS with no hardware to manage.
Any OS. Linux, Windows, Docker, cloud VMs, bare metal.
No Mac required. We host the iMessage bridge.
No personal Apple ID. Your agent gets its own managed number.
Enterprise-grade. We handle millions of iMessage API calls daily.
What's different
The existing NanoClaw iMessage integration required a Mac running locally — your hardware, your Apple ID, your responsibility to keep it online. It worked, but it was a lot of overhead for one channel.
Photon builds messaging infrastructure for AI agents. Our open-source framework Spectrum connects agents to iMessage, WhatsApp Business, Telegram, Slack, Discord, and more through a single API. For iMessage, we handle number provisioning, message routing, and delivery reliability.
We are now bringing hosted iMessage to NanoClaw. We run the iMessage infrastructure, provision a phone number for your agent, and handle delivery. Your NanoClaw agent talks to our API. No Mac, no personal Apple ID, simpler setup.
This is the pattern we're building for: agents deserve native presence where humans actually talk. NanoClaw joins Hermes Agent, Vercel eve and a growing list of frameworks shipping iMessage through Photon.
What's supported
The hosted iMessage channel is backed by Photon's cloud provider. Feature coverage via the hosted backend:
Send and receive text — DMs only
Attachments and contacts — send and receive files and contact cards
Reactions and replies — tapbacks and threaded replies
Typing indicators — streaming text and live typing state
Read receipts — inbound receipts when someone reads a message you sent
Effects — iMessage send effects (e.g. confetti, slam)
These features aren't available with the local Mac-based backend. They're only possible because the hosted backend runs on Photon's cloud infrastructure.
Setup
You'll need a Photon account and the latest version of NanoClaw.
New to NanoClaw
Install NanoClaw following the getting started guide, then run the setup wizard and select iMessage.
Existing NanoClaw users
Pull the latest and run the wizard:
The wizard walks you through adding your number on the Photon dashboard and waits until routing is confirmed. Once it reports success, your agent is live on iMessage.
Once it's done, iMessage works like any other NanoClaw channel — same agent, same codebase.
Spectrum is open source at photon.codes.
Questions or issues?
Docs: docs.photon.codes
Discord: discord.com/invite/4yXmmFPadR
