Telegram

The Telegram interface connects an Agent, Team, or Workflow to Telegram's Bot API through a webhook. This lesson focuses on the channel-specific behavior: default-on streaming, group mention filtering, inbound and outbound media, bot commands, quoted replies, and prefix routing for multiple bots.

Files

Prerequisites

Install the demo environment:

./scripts/demo_setup.sh

The Telegram interface requires the agno[telegram] extra. Its telebot import is supplied by the pyTelegramBotAPI package.

For local webhook testing, set APP_ENV=development to bypass Telegram's secret-token check. In production, set TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_SECRET_TOKEN and register the same value as the webhook's secret_token.

Create and Connect a Bot

Create a bot with @BotFather, copy its token, and export it:

export TELEGRAM_TOKEN="your-bot-token"
export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-openai-key"
export APP_ENV="development"

Start the basic server:

.venvs/demo/bin/python cookbook/05_agent_os/18_telegram/basic.py

Telegram needs a public HTTPS callback. Expose port 7777 with a tunnel, then register the default webhook:

curl -X POST "https://api.telegram.org/bot${TELEGRAM_TOKEN}/setWebhook" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://YOUR-PUBLIC-HOST/telegram/webhook"}'

The default interface mounts:

AgentOS also exposes GET /health and GET /config on the same server.

Run

Start one standalone example at a time:

.venvs/demo/bin/python cookbook/05_agent_os/18_telegram/basic.py
.venvs/demo/bin/python cookbook/05_agent_os/18_telegram/media.py
.venvs/demo/bin/python cookbook/05_agent_os/18_telegram/multiple_instances.py

Each file uses port 7777 and the webhook prefixes listed in this README.

Streaming and Group Chats

streaming=True is the interface default. Telegram progressively edits the reply while the Agent runs, so a separate streaming example would only repeat the basic configuration.

In direct messages, the bot processes normal messages. In groups, reply_to_mentions_only=True means it responds only when mentioned or when a user replies to one of its messages. reply_to_bot_messages=True enables the reply case. Telegram's BotFather privacy setting still determines which group messages Telegram delivers to the bot.

Commands and Quoted Responses

The interface provides /start, /help, and /new. /new starts a fresh session while preserving older sessions and therefore requires the Agent, Team, or Workflow to have a database.

commands accepts menu entries such as:

commands=[
    {"command": "start", "description": "Start the bot"},
    {"command": "help", "description": "Show help"},
    {"command": "new", "description": "Start a new conversation"},
]

With register_commands=True, which is the default, the menu is registered lazily when the first message is processed. That operation contacts Telegram's API and is not performed by construction smoke tests.

Set quoted_responses=True to reply directly to the incoming message in private chats. Group responses already quote the triggering message.

Conversation sessions are scoped as tg:{entity_id}:{chat_id}. Supergroup reply threads and forum topics append the message_thread_id.

Media

The interface downloads photos, static stickers, voice notes, audio, videos, video notes, animations, and documents and passes them to the served entity as Agno media objects. Telegram bot downloads are limited to 20 MB by this interface.

Images, audio, video, and files returned by the Agent are sent back to the chat automatically. media.py uses Gemini for inbound understanding, DALL-E for image generation, and ElevenLabs for speech and sound effects.

Multiple Bots and Prefixes

Telegram stores one webhook URL per bot. To run multiple_instances.py honestly, create two bots and register each token against its own route:

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.telegram.org/bot${ASSISTANT_TELEGRAM_TOKEN}/setWebhook" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://YOUR-PUBLIC-HOST/assistant/webhook"}'

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.telegram.org/bot${RESEARCH_TELEGRAM_TOKEN}/setWebhook" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://YOUR-PUBLIC-HOST/research/webhook"}'

The mounted routes are:

The production webhook secret is global to this AgentOS process. Because it is chosen by the operator, both bot registrations can use the same TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_SECRET_TOKEN.