Telegram Setup

Create a Telegram bot

1. Open Telegram and message @BotFather
2. Send /newbot
3. Choose a display name (e.g., “My Denkeeper”)
4. Choose a username (must end in bot, e.g., my_denkeeper_bot)
5. Copy the token BotFather gives you

Configure Denkeeper

[telegram]
token = "123456:ABC-DEF1234ghIkl-zyx57W2v1u123ew11"
allowed_users = [YOUR_USER_ID]

Find your user ID by messaging @userinfobot.

Features

Typing indicator

While the LLM is processing, the bot shows a “typing…” indicator in the chat. This is sent immediately after receiving your message and refreshed every 4 seconds until the response is ready.

Slash commands

Denkeeper registers these built-in commands with Telegram’s command picker:

/session is also handled, though it is not registered in the command picker. Send /session to list the channels available to you, or /session <name> to switch the current chat to another channel. The selection persists across restarts.

Skills with command: triggers (e.g., triggers = ["command:briefing"]) are automatically registered as /briefing in Telegram’s command menu alongside the built-ins.

Voice messages

With the [voice] section configured, the bot transcribes incoming voice messages to text using OpenAI’s Whisper API, and can optionally reply with synthesized speech.

Inline keyboards

Approval requests are delivered as messages with Approve/Deny inline buttons. The user taps a button to resolve the request without typing.

Multiple agents

You can bind different agents to different Telegram chats:

[[agents]]
name = "default"
adapters = ["telegram"]            # all other chats

[[agents]]
name = "work"
adapters = ["telegram:987654321"]  # this specific chat only

A specific binding beats a wildcard, so the two above coexist.

To share one conversation between Telegram and Discord, or to switch a chat between agents at runtime with /session, see Channels.