- Gateway owns the WhatsApp socket and reconnect loop.

- The reconnect watchdog uses WhatsApp Web transport activity, not only inbound app-message volume, so a quiet linked-device session is not restarted solely because nobody has sent a message recently. A longer application-silence cap still forces a reconnect if transport frames keep arriving but no application messages are handled for the watchdog window.

- Baileys socket timings are explicit under `web.whatsapp.*`: `keepAliveIntervalMs` controls WhatsApp Web application pings, `connectTimeoutMs` controls the opening handshake timeout, and `defaultQueryTimeoutMs` controls Baileys query timeouts.

- Outbound sends require an active WhatsApp listener for the target account.

- Status and broadcast chats are ignored (`@status`, `@broadcast`).

- Direct chats use DM session rules (`session.dmScope`; default `main` collapses DMs to the agent main session).

restarts when WhatsApp Web transport activity stops, the socket closes, or

application-level activity stays silent beyond the longer safety window.

If logs show repeated `status=408 Request Time-out Connection was lost`, tune

Baileys socket timings under `web.whatsapp`. Start by shortening

`keepAliveIntervalMs` below your network's idle timeout and increasing

`connectTimeoutMs` on slow or lossy links:

```json5

{

web: {

whatsapp: {

keepAliveIntervalMs: 15000,

connectTimeoutMs: 60000,

defaultQueryTimeoutMs: 60000,

},

},

}

```

Fix:

```bash

- access: `dmPolicy`, `allowFrom`, `groupPolicy`, `groupAllowFrom`, `groups`

- delivery: `textChunkLimit`, `chunkMode`, `mediaMaxMb`, `sendReadReceipts`, `ackReaction`, `reactionLevel`

- multi-account: `accounts.<id>.enabled`, `accounts.<id>.authDir`, account-level overrides

- operations: `configWrites`, `debounceMs`, `web.enabled`, `web.heartbeatSeconds`, `web.reconnect.*`

- operations: `configWrites`, `debounceMs`, `web.enabled`, `web.heartbeatSeconds`, `web.reconnect.*`, `web.whatsapp.*`

- session behavior: `session.dmScope`, `historyLimit`, `dmHistoryLimit`, `dms.<id>.historyLimit`

- prompts: `groups.<id>.systemPrompt`, `groups["*"].systemPrompt`, `direct.<id>.systemPrompt`, `direct["*"].systemPrompt`