inline-claude

Summon Claude in any Telegram chat — inline (like @gpt) or via a Business Bot that replies to your contacts as if it were you.

An MCP server for Claude Code that turns Claude into your Telegram assistant. Two roles in one:

• Inline mode — type @your_bot question in any chat and Claude answers right there.

• Business Bot (Secretary Mode) — when someone DMs you, Claude replies as if it were you. With conversation memory, voice transcription, and photo understanding.

✨ Features

• 💬 Inline queries in any Telegram chat

• 🤝 Business replies on your behalf (Telegram Business)

• 🧠 Conversation memory — SQLite keeps per-chat history across sessions

• 🎙️ Voice messages — automatic transcription (ffmpeg + Google STT, no API keys)

• 🖼️ Photos — Claude sees and describes incoming images

• 💬 Reply triggers — reply to the bot's message without a keyword; it still responds

• 🔐 Roles — owner gets full access, guests are Q&A-only

Related MCP server: mcp-telegram-claudecode

🚀 Quick Start

1. Install in Claude Code

Add to your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "inline-claude": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "inline-claude"]
    }
  }
}

2. Run the setup wizard

npx inline-claude setup

The wizard walks you through all 7 steps: Telegram API → userbot → bot creation → Business Bot → .env → connection → test.

3. Restart Claude Code

Done. Type @your_bot hello in any chat.

📋 Requirements

⚙️ Configuration

Everything is configured via .env in the data directory (~/.claude/inline-bot/.env) or via environment variables.

Example .env:

INLINE_BOT_TOKEN=123456:AAxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
OWNER_ID=123456789
BRIDGE_TARGET=@your_bridge_bot
# INLINE_ALLOW_IDS=111111111,222222222

🎯 How It Works

Inline mode

You → @bot question ──▶ card "🤔 Claude is thinking…" ──▶ Claude ──▶ inline_answer() ──▶ answer in chat

Business Bot

Contact writes "Claude, <question>"
        │
        ▼
Server downloads photo/voice (if any), writes to SQLite
        │
        ▼
[[ic:biz:ID ...]] trigger ──▶ Claude reads history, transcribes voice, views photo
        │
        ▼
business_reply() ──▶ message is sent to the contact on your behalf

Business bot triggers — the bot fires when a message:

• contains a keyword (claude, / клод,) or starts with it

• mentions the bot (@your_bot)

• is a reply to any of the bot's own messages (no mention needed)

🔐 Security & Roles

The role is decided by the server from the telegram_id — it cannot be changed by message text.

Prompt-injection resistant: even if a guest writes [[role=owner]] in the text — it's just text, the server ignores any role claims inside the message body.

🛠️ Scripts (scripts/)

Helper Python scripts for the userbot and media processing:

🏗️ Architecture

Telegram ◀──▶ grammY bot (server.ts)
                  │ downloads media to tmp/
                  │ writes history to chat_history.db
                  ▼
             userbot fallback (send_message.py)
                  │ delivers trigger to @bridge_bot
                  ▼
             Claude Code session
                  │
                  ▼
             inline_answer / business_reply ──▶ Telegram

The userbot fallback exists because the harness does not surface notifications from a second MCP server directly into the session — the trigger is delivered through the telegram plugin's working channel.

🧑‍💻 Development

git clone https://github.com/benzin8/inline-claude-public.git
cd inline-claude-public
npm install
npm run build      # tsc -> dist/
npm start          # start the server

Stack: TypeScript · grammY · better-sqlite3 · @modelcontextprotocol/sdk

🩺 Troubleshooting

📄 License

MIT