Channel: Telegram

Telegram is the easiest channel to connect — Shmastra can register the webhook automatically if you have a PUBLIC_URL, and falls back to long-polling when you don't.

Before you start

Create a bot with @BotFather on Telegram:

1. Send /newbot and follow the prompts.
2. Copy the bot token BotFather gives you (it looks like 123456:ABC…).

Example prompts

Connect the support-agent to Telegram.

Make a Telegram bot for my scribe agent.

Hook this agent up to a Telegram bot.

What happens

1. The widget opens the safe env-var UI and asks for one variable: SUPPORT_AGENT_TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN (password type). Paste the BotFather token.

2. Shmastra adds the Telegram adapter to the agent, wrapped with createAgentChannels:

   import { Agent } from '@mastra/core/agent'
   import { createTelegramAdapter } from '@chat-adapter/telegram'
   import { createAgentChannels } from '../shmastra'
   
   export const supportAgent = new Agent({
     id: 'support-agent',
     channels: createAgentChannels({
       adapters: {
         telegram: createTelegramAdapter({
           botToken: process.env.SUPPORT_AGENT_TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN,
         }),
       },
     }),
   })

3. If PUBLIC_URL is set, Shmastra calls Telegram's setWebhook API for you pointing at {PUBLIC_URL}/api/agents/support-agent/channels/telegram/webhook.

4. If no public URL is available, the adapter runs in long-polling mode — good enough for local development.

5. After hot-reload, send your bot a message on Telegram. It replies.

Multiple bots

You can connect multiple agents, each to its own bot. Each agent gets its own prefixed env var ({AGENT_ID}_TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN), so credentials never collide.

Tips

• Use /setjoingroups in BotFather if you want the bot to accept group messages; otherwise it only accepts DMs.
• Attachments work. Send a PDF to the bot and the agent will see it the same way it would via the chat widget — queryDocumentsTool picks it up.
• Rename carefully. If you rename the agent, the env-var prefix changes. Ask the widget to rename both at once.