📬 mcp-telegram-agent

Give your AI agent full Telegram Bot superpowers — zero login risk, zero setup.

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server empowering AI agents with Telegram Bot capabilities. Built with Python (SDK-compatible with both mcp 1.x FastMCP and 2.x MCPServer), designed to work seamlessly out-of-the-box with uvx and modern AI coding agents like VS Code Cline and Claude Desktop. Also includes the ultra-short command alias tg-agent.

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🔐 Stop giving AI your personal Telegram account credentials.

mcp-telegram-agent is a lightweight, zero-login-risk notification and delivery tool — just one Bot Token sends local files, reports, interactive keyboards, and rich notifications straight to your phone.

✨ Highlights

• Pure Bot API Architecture — Zero login session risk, no SMS codes or sensitive credential files needed.

• Dual CLI Entry Points — Call via standard mcp-telegram-agent or the compact tg-agent alias.

• Full Keyboard Support — Effortlessly construct dynamic Inline Keyboards (with URLs or callback data) and custom Reply Keyboards.

• Rich Media & Local Files — Deliver logs, reports, source code, images, audio, voice notes, videos, and multi-image albums (2–10 files).

• Interactive Tooling — Launch quizzes, single/multiple-choice polls, GPS coordinates, digital contact cards, and animated dice.

• Message Lifecycle — Broadcast bot statuses (typing, uploading) and edit or delete messages on the fly.

• Instant uvx Execution — Run directly with no virtual environments or manual package installs.

Related MCP server: Telegram MCP Server

🚀 Quick Start

1️⃣ Create a Telegram Bot & Get the Token

1. Open Telegram and search for @BotFather (verified blue check).

2. Send /newbot and follow the prompts: choose a display name, then a username ending in bot (e.g. my_alert_bot).

3. BotFather replies with your Bot Token, e.g. 123456789:AAHxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Keep it secret — anyone with this token can control your bot.

4. Important: open your new bot's chat and press Start (or send /start). A bot cannot message a user who has never started a conversation with it.

2️⃣ Get Your Personal Chat ID

1. Send any message (e.g. "hi") to your new bot.

2. Open this URL in a browser, replacing <YOUR_BOT_TOKEN> with your token: https://api.telegram.org/bot<YOUR_BOT_TOKEN>/getUpdates

3. In the JSON response, locate "chat":{"id": 123456789, ...} — that number is your Chat ID.

   • Alternative: send any message to @userinfobot and it replies with your ID.

3️⃣ Send to Groups or Channels (Optional)

• Add the bot to the group first (via group settings → Add members). For channels, the bot must be added as an administrator to post.

• Group IDs are negative numbers (e.g. -1001234567890). To find one:

  • Temporarily add @userinfobot to the group and forward a group message to it, or

  • Disable the bot's Group Privacy via @BotFather (/setprivacy → select your bot → Disable), post a message in the group, then check getUpdates as above.

• Once the bot is a member of the group/channel, it can send messages there — no extra configuration needed.

4️⃣ Sending to Any Chat at Runtime

TELEGRAM_DEFAULT_CHAT_ID is only the fallback target. Every tool accepts an optional chat_id parameter, so you can simply ask your AI agent to "send this to chat ID -1001234567890":

• chat_id omitted → the message goes to the TELEGRAM_DEFAULT_CHAT_ID from your config.

• chat_id provided → the message goes to that user/group/channel instead.

• Requirement: the bot must be a member of that group/channel (or the target user must have pressed Start on the bot).

5️⃣ Configuration for AI Clients

Add the configuration below to your MCP settings file (e.g., cline_mcp_settings.json or claude_desktop_config.json).

✅ Example A — Universal Default (Recommended)

A universal configuration that works with every MCP client — just fill in your bot token and chat ID:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Telegram": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-telegram-agent"],
      "env": {
        "TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN": "YOUR_TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN",
        "TELEGRAM_DEFAULT_CHAT_ID": "YOUR_CHAT_ID"
      }
    }
  }
}

💡 Both env variables are optional. If they are missing, the server still starts normally — it returns a clear, human-readable error only when a tool call actually needs the token or the fallback chat ID. This also allows a credential-free trial run with no env block at all:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Telegram": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-telegram-agent"]
    }
  }
}

🧰 Available Tools

💬 Usage Examples

Once configured, simply talk to your AI agent in natural language — it picks the right tool automatically. Below are typical requests together with the tool calls the agent makes:

📢 Send a formatted notification

"Tell me in Telegram that the nightly build succeeded, with a button linking to https://example.com"

{
  "tool": "send_text_message",
  "arguments": {
    "text": "✅ *Nightly build succeeded!*",
    "parse_mode": "Markdown",
    "inline_buttons": [[{"text": "Dashboard", "url": "https://example.com"}]]
  }
}

📁 Share local files

"Upload logs/app.log to my Telegram and summarize the errors"

{
  "tool": "send_local_document",
  "arguments": {
    "file_path": "logs/app.log",
    "caption": "Error log summary: 3 timeout warnings"
  }
}

🖼️ Send an album

"Send the three screenshots in screenshots/ to my Telegram as one album"

{
  "tool": "send_media_album",
  "arguments": {
    "file_paths": ["screenshots/1.png", "screenshots/2.png", "screenshots/3.png"],
    "caption": "Latest UI screenshots"
  }
}

🗳️ Run a quiz in a group

"Post a quiz to chat ID -1001234567890: which port does HTTPS use? Options 80 / 443 / 8080, the answer is 443, with a short explanation"

{
  "tool": "send_poll",
  "arguments": {
    "chat_id": "-1001234567890",
    "question": "Which port does HTTPS use?",
    "options": ["80", "443", "8080"],
    "type": "quiz",
    "correct_option_id": 1,
    "explanation": "HTTPS defaults to port 443."
  }
}

♻️ Update or clean up messages

"Change that deployment notice to 'finished', then delete the old reminder (ID 120)"

{
  "tool": "edit_message_text",
  "arguments": { "message_id": 123, "text": "🚀 Deployment **finished**" }
}

{
  "tool": "delete_message",
  "arguments": { "message_id": 120 }
}

💡 When chat_id is omitted, messages go to TELEGRAM_DEFAULT_CHAT_ID; pass it explicitly to reach any user, group, or channel — see step 4️⃣ above.

🛠️ Development & Release Flow

• Develop against main — all feature work and PRs land here.

• Publishing happens only from the release branch: open a PR main → release, bump version in pyproject.toml within the PR, then merge — CI builds and publishes to PyPI automatically, and creates a matching GitHub Release (v* tag + auto-generated notes).

• If the version was not bumped, the workflow skips publishing with a clear warning — docs-only PRs won't break CI.

• Direct pushes to release are blocked by branch protection; always go through a PR.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.