Telegram Group Chat Setup

Automate the configuration needed for a MoltBot agent to work in a Telegram group.

What this skill does

1. Adds a Telegram group to the gateway allowlist with

   requireMention: true

2. Configures

   groupAllowFrom

   with specified user IDs / @usernames
3. Auto-detects the bot's name and @username via the Telegram Bot API
4. Sets

   mentionPatterns

   so the bot responds to its name and @username
5. Applies the config patch and restarts the gateway

Prerequisites (manual steps)

Before running this skill, the user must:

1. Create the Telegram group and add the bot to it
2. Disable privacy mode in @BotFather:

   /mybots

   → select bot → Bot Settings → Group Privacy → Turn off (See

   references/telegram-privacy-mode.md

   for details)
3. Know the group ID (negative number for Telegram groups)
4. Know the user IDs or @usernames of people allowed to trigger the bot

Usage

The user provides:

• group_id

  : Telegram group ID (e.g.,

  -1001234567890

  )

• allowed_users

  : List of Telegram user IDs or @usernames who can trigger the bot

Example prompt:

"Set up my bot in Telegram group -1001234567890. Allow users 123456789 and @some_user to ping me."

Implementation Steps

Step 1: Detect bot info

Run the detection script to get the bot's name and username:

bash skills/groupchat-setup/scripts/detect_bot_info.sh

This reads the bot token from the gateway config and returns the bot's

name

and

username

. If the script is unavailable, extract the bot token from

channels.telegram.botToken

in the gateway config and call

https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/getMe

.

Step 2: Build mention patterns

From the detected bot info, construct mention patterns:

• @<username>

  (e.g.,

  @my_awesome_bot

  )

• <name>

  lowercase (e.g.,

  mybot

  )

• @<name>

  lowercase (e.g.,

  @mybot

  )

Remove duplicates. Patterns are case-insensitive regexes.

Step 3: Apply config patch

Use the

gateway

tool with

action: "config.patch"

to apply:

{
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "groups": {
        "<group_id>": {
          "requireMention": true
        }
      },
      "groupAllowFrom": ["<user1>", "<user2>"]
    }
  },
  "messages": {
    "groupChat": {
      "mentionPatterns": ["@bot_username", "bot_name", "@bot_name"]
    }
  }
}

Important: If

groupAllowFrom

or

mentionPatterns

already have values, merge them (do not overwrite). Read the current config first with

gateway action: "config.get"

, merge arrays, then patch.

Step 4: Confirm

After the gateway restarts, send a test message to the group confirming the setup:

"✅ Bot configured for this group! I'll respond when someone mentions my name. Allowed users: [list]."

Notes

• requireMention: true

  means the bot only responds when explicitly mentioned — it won't spam every message.

• groupAllowFrom

  restricts which senders can trigger the bot. Without it, messages from unknown senders may be dropped.

• groupPolicy: "allowlist"

  is the Telegram default — only explicitly listed groups are active.
• Privacy mode is a Telegram-side setting that cannot be changed via API. The user must do this in @BotFather.
• For multi-bot groups (e.g., two MoltBot agents), each bot must run this setup independently on its own gateway.