Build a Telegram AI Agent with nanobot

This guide connects nanobot to Telegram so an allowed Telegram user can message a self-hosted AI agent backed by your normal nanobot config, tools, memory, and workspace.

What this guide builds

a Telegram bot created through BotFather
the telegram channel enabled in nanobot
a running nanobot gateway
one test message from an allowed Telegram account

Prerequisites

A working nanobot CLI reply:

nanobot agent -m "Hello!"

A Telegram account.
A bot token from @BotFather.
Your Telegram user ID for allowFrom.

Install nanobot

python -m pip install nanobot-ai
nanobot onboard --wizard

Enable the Telegram channel

Install the optional channel dependency:

nanobot plugins enable telegram

Merge this snippet into ~/.nanobot/config.json:

{
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN",
      "allowFrom": ["YOUR_USER_ID"]
    }
  }
}

Telegram uses long polling by default. Webhook mode is available for public HTTPS deployments; start with long polling for the first test.

Run nanobot gateway

nanobot channels status
nanobot gateway

Leave the gateway running while you test messages.

Test a message

Open Telegram, message the bot from the user in allowFrom, and send:

Hello from Telegram

The reply should use the same model and workspace as your local CLI check.

Security notes

Keep allowFrom to your own user ID until the bot is stable.
Do not use allowFrom: ["*"] unless the bot is isolated or intentionally public.
Rotate the BotFather token if it is pasted into logs or shared files.
Review tool access before adding group chats or more users.

Troubleshooting

If the channel is not listed, run nanobot plugins enable telegram again in the same Python environment.
If messages do not arrive, run nanobot gateway --verbose and check the bot token and allowed user ID.
If Telegram Web shows unsupported rich messages, keep richMessages disabled.

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