Set Up Telegram

Connect a Telegram bot to your CrabTalk agent — one command, real-time responses.

Connect a Telegram bot to CrabTalk so your agent can respond to messages in real time. Takes about 5 minutes.

1. Create a Telegram bot

Open Telegram and message @BotFather:

Send /newbot
Choose a display name and username
Copy the bot token BotFather gives you

2. Start the gateway

crabtalk telegram start

On first run, it prompts for your bot token. After that, it installs a system service (launchd on macOS, systemd on Linux) and starts automatically.

You can also configure the token via crabtalk auth under the Gateways tab.

3. Verify

Send any message to your bot in Telegram. You should get a response from your default agent within a few seconds.

How it works

Telegram message
  → gateway receives it
  → connects to daemon via UDS
  → event loop dispatches to agent
  → response streams back through gateway
  → appears in Telegram

The gateway is a standalone binary (crabtalk-telegram) that connects to the daemon as a client. It doesn't run inside the daemon — it's an independent process managed by your system's service manager.

Managing the service

crabtalk telegram start   # install and start
crabtalk telegram stop    # stop the service
crabtalk ls               # list all running services

Config lives at ~/.crabtalk/config/telegram.toml, separate from the daemon config.

What's next

Commands — how cargo-style dispatch works
Auth — manage tokens and providers interactively
Agents — configure which agent responds to messages