🤖 If you are an AI agent: read AGENTS.md first, then AGENT_SETUP.md.

🤖 MCP Telegram Agent

Send Telegram notifications directly from any MCP-compatible AI agent.

This project is a TypeScript MCP server over stdio, designed to be easy to run locally and easy to distribute via npm + npx.

✨ Features

• ✅ Send a message to Telegram with one MCP tool call

• ✅ Guided onboarding flow: token → setup code verification → auto config snippet

• ✅ Validate Telegram config before sending anything

• ✅ Read recent Telegram updates to discover chat_id and message_id

• ✅ Works with npx mcp-telegram-agent in MCP config

• ✅ Token-first setup (safer than hardcoding full API URL)

Related MCP server: tgmcp

📦 Installation

Option A: Use directly with npx (recommended for MCP clients)

No local clone required in production:

npx -y mcp-telegram-agent

Option B: Local development

npm install
npm run check
npm run build
npm run dev

🔧 Environment Variables

Recommended (default behavior)

• BOT_TELEGRAM_TOKEN (required)

• BOT_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID (required)

Compatibility aliases

• BOT_TELEGRAM_ID (alias for chat ID)

• BOT_TELEGRAM_URL (legacy fallback, full sendMessage URL)

Optional

• BOT_TELEGRAM_TIMEOUT_MS (default: 10000)

• BOT_TELEGRAM_THREAD_ID (for Telegram forum topics)

• BOT_TELEGRAM_API_BASE_URL (advanced/testing override, default: https://api.telegram.org)

Security note: Prefer BOT_TELEGRAM_TOKEN over BOT_TELEGRAM_URL so your secret is managed as a single token value.

🧠 MCP Client Configuration

npx setup (recommended)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "telegram-agent": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-telegram-agent"],
      "env": {
        "BOT_TELEGRAM_TOKEN": "123456789:AAxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
        "BOT_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID": "123456789"
      }
    }
  }
}

Local build setup

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "telegram-agent": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/ABSOLUTE/PATH/mcp_telegram_agent/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "BOT_TELEGRAM_TOKEN": "123456789:AAxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
        "BOT_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID": "123456789"
      }
    }
  }
}

🛠️ Exposed MCP Tools

telegram_onboarding_prepare

Prepares onboarding for a fresh token and returns:

• a setup code

• exact message to send (plain setup code)

• MCP config template

• if botToken is omitted and client supports elicitation, MCP requests secure token input UI

telegram_onboarding_verify

Verifies onboarding by scanning updates for the setup code (plain message, or /start <code>) and then:

• discovers chat_id + message_id

• builds a ready-to-paste MCP config JSON

• optionally sends a test message automatically

• supports cautious mode with explicit chat_id confirmation (requireChatIdConfirmation + expectedChatId)

• if botToken is omitted and client supports elicitation, MCP requests secure token input UI

send_telegram_notification

Send a message to your configured Telegram chat.

Input:

• message (string, required)

• parseMode (HTML | Markdown | MarkdownV2, optional)

• disableNotification (boolean, optional)

Output example:

• Notification sent to Telegram (status 200, message_id=207).

telegram_config_status

Validate env config and show active source (BOT_TELEGRAM_TOKEN vs BOT_TELEGRAM_URL).

telegram_get_updates

Fetch recent updates from Telegram to inspect:

• chat_id

• message_id

• message text

• username

Useful when you are still wiring your bot and need IDs.

Supports incremental polling:

• fromUpdateId (fetch newer updates only)

• waitSeconds (Telegram long polling timeout)

telegram_send_control_checkpoint

Sends a structured checkpoint message (title + summary + control metadata) so users can reply with control actions.

Typical usage:

• agent says "task done"

• user replies to that checkpoint with continue CODE123, stop CODE123, etc.

telegram_poll_control_replies

Reads new updates and filters control replies by:

• replyToMessageId

• controlCode

• instanceId

• optional actionFilter

This is designed for multi-IDE safety and uses long polling (waitSeconds) to reduce API churn.

telegram_ack_control_reply

Sends an acknowledgement as a direct reply to the user control message, including status and summary.

🧭 Agent Command (/setup-mcp-telegram-agent)

This repository ships:

• AGENTS.md

• AGENT_SETUP.md

• .cursor/commands/setup-mcp-telegram-agent.md

Suggested chat command:

/setup-mcp-telegram-agent

Expected flow:

1. Install/activate MCP first with npx -y mcp-telegram-agent (no token required yet)

2. Ask for bot token (or direct user to create one at https://telegram.me/BotFather#)

3. Run telegram_onboarding_prepare

4. Ask user to send <code> (plain message) to the bot

5. Run telegram_onboarding_verify in confirmation mode to list candidates

6. Ask user to confirm exact chat_id

7. Run telegram_onboarding_verify again with expectedChatId

8. Apply generated MCP config

9. Send one test notification

📲 Telegram Bot Setup (BotFather)

1) Open BotFather

Search for @BotFather in Telegram and open it.

2) Create a new bot

Send:

/newbot

Then follow prompts:

1. Bot display name (example: My MCP Notifier)

2. Bot username ending in bot (example: my_mcp_notifier_bot)

BotFather returns your token:

123456789:AAxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Save it securely as BOT_TELEGRAM_TOKEN.

3) Start a chat with your bot

Open your new bot and click Start (or send any message).

4) Get your chat_id and message_id

Call:

curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot<YOUR_TOKEN>/getUpdates"

Then look for:

• message.chat.id → this is your chat_id

• message.message_id → this is the message ID

Visual guide:

🧪 Quick Test

Use your real values:

curl -sS -X POST "https://api.telegram.org/bot<YOUR_TOKEN>/sendMessage" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"chat_id":"<YOUR_CHAT_ID>","text":"✅ MCP test message"}'

🚀 Publish to npm

Publishing is automated with GitHub Actions + semantic-release.

After the first release, users can run:

npx -y mcp-telegram-agent

⚙️ GitHub Actions Auto Publish

This repository includes:

• .github/workflows/release.yml

• .releaserc.json

Behavior:

1. Runs on each push to main

2. Uses Conventional Commits to decide release type (fix = patch, feat = minor, BREAKING CHANGE = major)

3. Creates GitHub release + publishes to npm

Required GitHub secret:

• NPM_TOKEN (npm automation token with publish permissions)

Required commit style examples:

fix: first automated release setup
feat: add support for telegram topics

First release target (v0.0.1):

1. Create and push baseline tag v0.0.0 once.

2. Push a fix: commit to main.

3. Action will publish v0.0.1.

Commands:

git tag v0.0.0
git push origin v0.0.0
git commit --allow-empty -m "fix: bootstrap first semantic release"
git push origin main

🧩 GitHub Repository Setup

If this is a fresh local directory:

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial MCP telegram agent server"
git branch -M main
git remote add origin https://github.com/tecnomanu/mcp-telegram-agent.git
git push -u origin main

⚠️ Troubleshooting

• chat not found:

  • Ensure you started chat with the bot first.

  • Re-check BOT_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID from getUpdates.

• 401 Unauthorized:

  • Token is invalid, regenerated, or malformed.

• No updates in getUpdates:

  • Send a message to your bot, then retry.

📄 License

MIT