Telegram setup
Connect a Telegram bot to your agent, including the slash commands users get automatically.
Connecting a Telegram bot routes messages from Telegram to your agent and sends its replies back. It uses webhooks — Telegram pushes messages to KlicForge, so there is nothing to poll and nothing to host.
Prerequisites
- A Telegram account.
- An agent with status
active. - A plan that includes the Telegram channel.
Connecting
Create a bot
Message @BotFather on Telegram, create a bot, and copy the token it gives you.
Connect it
In the dashboard, open your agent's Channels tab and select Connect Channel → Telegram. Paste the bot token and save.
Confirm
KlicForge encrypts the token and registers the webhook with Telegram automatically. Message your bot to check it replies.
Expected result
Messages sent to your bot are answered by the agent, and the conversations appear in the dashboard.
Slash commands
/start and /reset are registered with Telegram automatically when the channel connects, so
they appear in the bot's command menu. /help is recognised in the message text like any other
command, without appearing in that menu.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/start | Starts a new conversation, keeping what the agent remembers about the contact |
/reset | Starts a new conversation and excludes the session from memory |
/help | Lists the commands available on this channel |
/start and /reset answer immediately with a short greeting from the agent. The greeting is
fixed text, so an agent cannot be prompted to look anything up before replying to a command.
Group chats
A Telegram bot can be added to a group. Group behaviour is configurable so the agent responds only when it should — for example when mentioned — rather than to every message.
Restricting who can chat
A Telegram bot is reachable by anyone who finds it, so a bot meant for staff or paying customers needs an allow list. Set the channel to Restricted on its Allow List tab and add the people who may use it.
Entries can be contacts who have messaged before, or rows from a data table with a
telegram_id or telegram_handle column — which is how you authorise someone who has not
messaged yet. Telegram confirms the sender's identity, so these entries hold. See
access control.
Disconnecting
From the agent's Channels tab, select Disconnect. KlicForge deregisters the webhook with Telegram for you.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| Bot does not reply at all | Agent status is not active, or the token was mistyped |
| Bot replies in direct messages but not groups | Group settings, or Telegram's own bot privacy mode |
| Bot stopped working after an infrastructure change | The webhook URL changed — reconnect the channel |
| Specific people get no reply | A deny list entry is filtering them |
| Nobody gets a reply | The channel is Restricted and the allow list matches nobody |
| Someone on the allow list is refused | Their handle is stored differently in the data table than the one they message from |