Nanoclaw channel-formatting

Convert Claude's Markdown output to each channel's native text syntax before delivery. Adds zero-dependency formatting for WhatsApp, Telegram, and Slack (marker substitution). Also ships a Signal rich-text helper (parseSignalStyles) used by the Signal skill.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/qwibitai/nanoclaw

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/qwibitai/nanoclaw "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/.claude/skills/channel-formatting" ~/.claude/skills/qwibitai-nanoclaw-channel-formatting && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: .claude/skills/channel-formatting/SKILL.md

Channel Formatting

This skill wires channel-aware Markdown conversion into the outbound pipeline so Claude's responses render natively on each platform — no more literal

**asterisks**

in WhatsApp or Telegram.

Channel	Transformation
WhatsApp	`bold` → `bold` , `italic` → `_italic_` , headings → bold, links → `text (url)`
Telegram	same as WhatsApp, but `[text](url)` links are preserved (Markdown v1 renders them natively)
Slack	same as WhatsApp, but links become `<url\|text>`
Discord	passthrough (Discord already renders Markdown)
Signal	passthrough for `parseTextStyles` ; `parseSignalStyles` in `src/text-styles.ts` produces plain text + native `textStyle` ranges for use by the Signal skill

Code blocks (fenced and inline) are always protected — their content is never transformed.

Phase 1: Pre-flight

Check if already applied

test -f src/text-styles.ts && echo "already applied" || echo "not yet applied"

already applied

, skip to Phase 3 (Verify).

Phase 2: Apply Code Changes

Ensure the upstream remote

git remote -v

If an

upstream

remote pointing to

https://github.com/qwibitai/nanoclaw.git

is missing, add it:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/qwibitai/nanoclaw.git

Merge the skill branch

git fetch upstream skill/channel-formatting
git merge upstream/skill/channel-formatting

If there are merge conflicts on

package-lock.json

, resolve them by accepting the incoming version and continuing:

git checkout --theirs package-lock.json
git add package-lock.json
git merge --continue

For any other conflict, read the conflicted file and reconcile both sides manually.

This merge adds:

src/text-styles.ts

—

parseTextStyles(text, channel)

for marker substitution and

parseSignalStyles(text)

for Signal native rich text

```
src/router.ts
```
—
```
formatOutbound
```
gains an optional
```
channel
```
parameter; when provided it calls
```
parseTextStyles
```
after stripping
```
<internal>
```
tags

src/index.ts

— both outbound

sendMessage

paths pass

channel.name

formatOutbound

```
src/formatting.test.ts
```
— test coverage for both functions across all channels

Validate

npm install
npm run build
npx vitest run src/formatting.test.ts

All 73 tests should pass and the build should be clean before continuing.

Phase 3: Verify

Rebuild and restart

npm run build
launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/com.nanoclaw   # macOS
# Linux: systemctl --user restart nanoclaw

Spot-check formatting

Send a message through any registered WhatsApp or Telegram chat that will trigger a response from Claude. Ask something that will produce formatted output, such as:

Summarise the three main advantages of TypeScript using bullet points and bold headings.

Confirm that the response arrives with native bold (

*text*

) rather than raw double asterisks.

Check logs if needed

tail -f logs/nanoclaw.log

Signal Skill Integration

If you have the Signal skill installed,

src/channels/signal.ts

can import

parseSignalStyles

from the newly present

src/text-styles.ts

import { parseSignalStyles, SignalTextStyle } from '../text-styles.js';

parseSignalStyles

returns

{ text: string, textStyle: SignalTextStyle[] }

where

textStyle

is an array of

{ style, start, length }

objects suitable for the

signal-cli

JSON-RPC

textStyles

parameter (format:

"start:length:STYLE"

Removal

# Remove the new file
rm src/text-styles.ts

# Revert router.ts to remove the channel param
git diff upstream/main src/router.ts   # review changes
git checkout upstream/main -- src/router.ts

# Revert the index.ts sendMessage call sites to plain formatOutbound(rawText)
# (edit manually or: git checkout upstream/main -- src/index.ts)

npm run build