Skip to main content

​
Telegram

Telegram is a lightweight way to delegate work to local AI agents from your phone, a group, or a forum topic.

​
What you get

  • Send tasks to a local AI agent from a DM, group, or forum.
  • Keep work local while you control it from anywhere.

​
Set up the bot

  1. In Telegram, open @BotFather, send /newbot, and choose a display name plus a username ending in bot. Copy the token.
  2. In the Avibe wizard, choose Telegram, paste the token, and Validate. (If your region blocks Telegram, set a proxy URL in the same step before validating — see below.)
  3. Back in @BotFather, set the switches that decide how the bot behaves in groups:
    • /setprivacy → Disable — so the bot sees normal group messages, not only mentions. This is the #1 setup miss.
    • /setjoingroups → Enable — if you’ll use it in groups or forums.
    • /setcommands — publish start, settings, new, resume.

​
Bind, then discover chats

Telegram has no “list every chat” API, so Avibe discovers chats from inbound messages. On first run, in order:
  1. Finish setup and start the service.
  2. Copy the bind command from the final summary screen.
  3. DM the bot bind <code> to become the first admin, then send /start to confirm.
  4. To use a group or forum, add the bot there, send one message, then refresh the Telegram chat list in group settings and enable it. Forum auto-topics need admin / topic-management rights.

​
Group defaults

The wizard exposes two Telegram defaults: require explicit targeting in groups (respond only to commands, mentions, or replies — good for busy groups) and forum auto-topic mode (a top-level message opens a new topic; needs admin / topic rights).

​
Smoke test

Say hello and tell me which project directory you can see.
If the bot does not answer, run: 
vibe doctor

​
Outbound proxy

If Telegram is blocked in your region, set proxy_url — easiest in the wizard’s Proxy field before validating, or on the Telegram config block in the Web UI. HTTP/HTTPS and any socks*:// scheme (socks4, socks4a, socks5, socks5h) are supported. Saving only persists the change; run vibe restart --delay-seconds 60 to apply it. Note: Avibe does not fall back to a direct connection if the proxy is down — fix or remove proxy_url to recover.

​
Common issues

SymptomCheck
Group messages ignored/setprivacy is set to Disable
Bot works in DM but not groups/setjoingroups is Enable
Chat not listedSend a message there first, then refresh discovered chats
Agent missingSelected backend CLI is installed and visible on PATH
Telegram unreachable from hostproxy_url on Telegram config; check firewall and TLS errors in logs