Telegram

Telegram

Connect a Telegram bot to your Claude Code with an MCP server.

The MCP server logs into Telegram as a bot and provides tools to Claude to reply, react, or edit messages. When you message the bot, the server forwards the message to your Claude Code session.

Prerequisites

• Bun — the MCP server runs on Bun. Install with curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash.

Quick Setup

Default pairing flow for a single-user DM bot. See ACCESS.md for groups and multi-user setups.

1. Create a bot with BotFather.

Open a chat with @BotFather on Telegram and send /newbot. BotFather asks for two things:

• Name — the display name shown in chat headers (anything, can contain spaces)
• Username — a unique handle ending in bot (e.g. my_assistant_bot). This becomes your bot's link: t.me/my_assistant_bot.

BotFather replies with a token that looks like 123456789:AAHfiqksKZ8... — that's the whole token, copy it including the leading number and colon.

2. Install the plugin.

These are Claude Code commands — run claude to start a session first.

Install the plugin:

/plugin install telegram@claude-plugins-official

3. Give the server the token.

/telegram:configure 123456789:AAHfiqksKZ8...

Writes TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=... to ~/.claude/channels/telegram/.env. You can also write that file by hand, or set the variable in your shell environment — shell takes precedence.

To run multiple bots on one machine (different tokens, separate allowlists), point TELEGRAM_STATE_DIR at a different directory per instance.

4. Relaunch with the channel flag.

The server won't connect without this — exit your session and start a new one:

claude --channels plugin:telegram@claude-plugins-official

5. Pair.

With Claude Code running from the previous step, DM your bot on Telegram — it replies with a 6-character pairing code. If the bot doesn't respond, make sure your session is running with --channels. In your Claude Code session:

/telegram:access pair <code>

Your next DM reaches the assistant.

Unlike Discord, there's no server invite step — Telegram bots accept DMs immediately. Pairing handles the user-ID lookup so you never touch numeric IDs.