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Telegram agent

Telegram
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Connect a Telegram bot and try your Flow agent from your phone.

Telegram is a quick way to try your agent on a real phone. Flow Messaging delivers the bot’s messages; your tools and skills stay in the same Flow project.

Try it from the starter

Section titled “Try it from the starter”
Terminal
npx @flow-engineer/flow link --channel telegram
npm start

Open the Telegram link and send its join message. Ask “What’s on the menu?”

Check it worked: the bot replies and the playground’s Debug view shows get_menu.

Use your own bot

Section titled “Use your own bot”

Configure a Telegram sender in Flow Messaging, then set FLOW_MESSAGING_KEY and FLOW_MESSAGING_TELEGRAM_SENDER in your runtime. The starter’s fm.channels() includes Telegram.

For a custom entry point, pass channels: [fm.telegram()] to buildAgent, call await agent.resume() and start fm.start(agent, { cursorFile }). See the adapter guide for the connection options.

What changes on Telegram

Section titled “What changes on Telegram”
  • The agent writes Markdown; the adapter sends it as Telegram’s HTML. Inline keyboards take up to ten buttons.
  • Photos can carry captions and a keyboard. Telegram has no carousel, so a carousel goes as its text, then one message per card in order: the card’s photo with its text as caption and its buttons under it. A card with buttons needs a text, or the carousel is refused before anything is sent.
  • Bot read receipts are not available.
  • The channel address is the Telegram user id, not a verified phone number.
  • From Framework 0.8.1, traces name the platform: chinwag.channel is telegram (it was web).

Use resolve if an authenticated Telegram identity should map to an account in your product. Keep shared trial bots for testing; use your own sender for customer conversations.