tg-recall

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Local-first Telegram archive for people and AI agents. tg-recall stores only explicitly selected chats in a local profile, indexes message text and transcripts, and returns source citations such as tg://chat/.../message/....

Early alpha (current release: v0.6.0). The archive includes private conversations and a Telegram user session. Keep the profile local, use full-disk encryption, and verify important findings against Telegram.

Install

Requires Python 3.13+ and uv.

git clone https://github.com/Rerowros/tg-recall.git
cd tg-recall
uv sync --extra dev
uv run tg-recall setup

For normal use, install the published universal wheel from the matching GitHub Release. GitHub displays the asset SHA-256 digest; compare it before installing when your release process requires an independent integrity check. A GitHub asset digest is integrity metadata, not a package signature.

uv tool install https://github.com/Rerowros/tg-recall/releases/download/v0.6.0/tg_recall-0.6.0-py3-none-any.whl
tg-recall --json doctor

uv tool install --editable . is for development only. It deliberately keeps the checkout as the source of the command, so tg-recall update apply will report manual_required rather than overwrite that checkout. Update an editable development install from its original checkout (git pull, uv sync or the project's documented workflow), or reinstall a verified release wheel.

Self-update and harness installation are explicit human-only lifecycle operations; they are never run automatically. Release checks are disabled by default. Only after explicit periodic configuration can an eligible interactive non-JSON CLI command make a best-effort check; help, MCP, automation, lifecycle commands and JSON commands never do so. See harness integration for update / integrate usage, scope support, backups, and manual fallbacks.

Related MCP server: Telegram Agent for Codex

Stable AI-harness bootstrap

To have Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, or another agent prepare a safe harness setup plan, copy this exact instruction:

Fetch https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Rerowros/tg-recall/main/docs/agent-setup/prompt.md and follow it.

The link is permanent and intentionally has no release version. The fetched contract resolves the latest stable GitHub Release and an exact universal wheel with its GitHub SHA-256 digest; it never installs from main. An agent may use only integrate list, integrate preview, and integrate status as data-blind diagnostics. Package installation and every integrate install, refresh, or uninstall operation remain an explicit human command: the agent prints it and stops. It requires an explicit user or project scope (and an explicit project root for the latter), preserves manual/partial actions, and tells the user to restart the affected harness before status verification.

The current published release can predate this contract. If its integrate list command is unavailable, setup stops with a capability-gap message; it must not use a checkout or source from main as a fallback.

tg-ecosystem and tg-ecosystem-mcp are deprecated compatibility aliases. Use tg-recall and tg-recall-mcp in new scripts; the aliases may be removed in a future breaking release.

Local Storage

tg-recall never writes an archive into the repository by default.

Each Telegram account is a profile. Its SQLite archive, session, media objects, wiki and exports remain isolated below data/profiles/<profile>/. Media is content-addressed by SHA-256 and SQLite stores a relative key, so a profile can be restored on another OS.

Use a self-contained root for an encrypted external disk or portable setup:

tg-recall --home D:\Private\tg-recall --profile work setup

Precedence is --home, TG_RECALL_HOME, then system defaults. Profile precedence is --profile, TG_RECALL_PROFILE, configured active profile, then default.

Telegram Setup

Create API credentials at my.telegram.org, then authorize from an interactive terminal:

tg-recall config set telegram.api_id 123456
tg-recall config set telegram.api_hash "your_api_hash"
tg-recall config set telegram.phone "+10000000000"
tg-recall telegram auth
tg-recall telegram check

Credentials and the session receive best-effort private permissions. Use BitLocker on Windows or LUKS on Linux for encryption at rest.

Archive Workflow

List chats, then create a policy-aware scope:

tg-recall chats list
tg-recall scopes create work --chat -1001234567890 --since 2026-01-01 --media voice,photo --transcribe auto
tg-recall sync run work --limit 500
tg-recall sync run work --backfill --limit 500

media accepts none, voice, audio, photo, video, document, all, or a comma-separated combination. Text and media metadata are always indexed; selected source media is retained locally. Normal runs fetch only messages newer than the saved watermark; --backfill explicitly continues into older history.

For a single idempotent workflow:

tg-recall --json sync ensure work --chat -1001234567890 --since 2026-01-01 --media voice,photo --transcribe auto --limit 500

transcribe auto tries Telegram transcription first and falls back to local Whisper. tg-recall --json doctor checks the current archive, Telegram session, ffmpeg and the whisper executable.

Local transcription

transcribe run defaults to sidecar; telegram uses Telegram, local uses the selected local adapter, and auto remains Telegram-first. For typed, human-only local backend settings, safe short-voice/long-audio VAD presets, and one-citation verification, see local transcription.

Agent Workflow

Ask an agent to start here:

tg-recall agent guide

For bounded cited evidence:

tg-recall --json retrieve --chat-id -1001234567890 --query "deadline" --context 8 --token-budget 12000

For a long-chat analysis, write a private JSONL export below the profile instead of printing the entire archive:

tg-recall export --chat -1001234567890 --since 2026-01-01 --include transcripts,media-metadata --format jsonl

The CLI can sync, download and transcribe local archives. It does not expose agent commands for authentication, credential changes, purge or Telegram write operations. MCP remains read-only.

For a bounded, offline-verifiable handoff to a local AI workflow, create a separate pack; the existing export JSONL command is unchanged:

tg-recall --json pack create project-a --chat -1001234567890 --since 2026-01-01 --max-records 200 --token-budget 12000
tg-recall --json pack inspect PATH\TO\project-a
tg-recall --json pack verify PATH\TO\project-a

pack create requires either a concrete chat plus a date boundary or a saved scope, and always requires positive record and token budgets. It writes under the selected profile's private exports directory by default. A human may explicitly pass --output; automation cannot. To include synthesized local knowledge, pass only explicit immutable --wiki-revision IDs (and --wiki-scope when it differs from the saved scope). Packs contain selected evidence and structured assertions, never sessions, credentials, media binaries, or absolute host paths.

Install managed Codex guidance instead of relying on Custom Instructions:

tg-recall integrate install --target codex --scope user

Use this compact text only as a generic/manual fallback when managed harness integration is unavailable:

Если пользователь просит посмотреть Telegram-чат, используй локальный `tg-recall`: сначала выполни `tg-recall agent guide` и следуй его workflow только для запрошенных чатов. Разрешены sync, media download и transcription; запрещены auth, purge и изменение config. Выводы подтверждай ссылками `tg://`.

For cost-aware Codex model routing, progressive context budgets, and the full copy-ready prompt, see docs/codex-agent-optimization.md. The guide prefers available gpt-5.3-codex-spark for near-instant bounded search using its separate Codex limit, with gpt-5.6-luna as the stable low-cost fallback.

The repository also contains local-only private wiki memory and private AI export packs. Pack creation is a profile-local CLI integration; there is no MCP pack tool, automatic wiki compiler, or automatic whole-archive export.

MCP

Start the local stdio server with:

tg-recall-mcp

MCP is intentionally read-only and requires explicit ai_access configuration. It can list allowed cached chats and scopes, search local messages, return nearby context, and provide extractive cited retrieval.

For optional genuine local-vector retrieval, first configure an already-downloaded model directory in the selected profile (semantic.enabled=true, semantic.provider=sentence-transformers-local, semantic.model_path=PATH) and install the optional runtime:

uv sync --extra local-embeddings
tg-recall --json index embeddings build --chat-id -1001234567890 --max-batches 1
tg-recall --json index embeddings status --chat-id -1001234567890
tg-recall --json retrieve "deadline" --chat-id -1001234567890 --retrieval-mode auto --token-budget 8000

The model path must already exist locally; tg-recall never downloads a model. auto reports a keyword fallback when vectors are unavailable or stale. semantic is strict and returns semantic_unavailable rather than relabeling token overlap as vectors. index embeddings rebuild and remove are explicit human-only maintenance commands; MCP exposes only bounded retrieve_evidence and never builds, rebuilds, or removes an index.

Current Limitations

• ask defaults to extractive cited retrieval. The optional OpenAI Responses provider requires its extra plus explicit provider-policy and scope approval; disabled or unavailable providers return a cited local fallback.

• Legacy --semantic uses local token overlap. Use --retrieval-mode auto|hybrid|semantic for the optional local embedding index.

• Local Whisper is invoked through an installed whisper executable; it is not bundled with the package.

• MCP cannot sync, download, transcribe, modify configuration or purge data.

Migration And Backup

Copy a current .tg-ecosystem directory without changing its source:

tg-recall migrate legacy --from C:\code\tg-ecosystem\.tg-ecosystem --dry-run
tg-recall migrate legacy --from C:\code\tg-ecosystem\.tg-ecosystem

The migration validates SQLite, copies media, converts absolute media paths to relative object keys, and never removes the legacy archive.

tg-recall backup create --mode essential --output D:\Backups\tg-recall-essential.zip
tg-recall backup create --mode full --include-session --output D:\Backups\tg-recall-full.zip
tg-recall backup restore D:\Backups\tg-recall-essential.zip --profile restored

essential includes the database, profile configuration and wiki. full also contains media. Session and credentials are excluded unless --include-session is explicit.

Development

uv run pytest -q
uv build

See CONTRIBUTING.md, SECURITY.md, ROADMAP.md, and docs/backup-restore.md.