Channel Telegram

Telegram Channel Worker

Use this skill when the user wants Telegram as a LionClaw channel.

Manual QA and Telegram-specific acceptance notes live in README.md in this skill directory.

What you run:

1. start LionClaw for background work,
2. run the Telegram worker,
3. let it bridge Telegram traffic into LionClaw.

Under the hood, the worker:

1. receives Telegram updates through long polling by default, or through an optional webhook receiver with Telegram secret-token verification,
2. maps Telegram ids into stable refs such as telegram:user:<id>, telegram:chat:<id>, telegram:topic:<id>, and telegram:message:<id>,
3. posts normalized inbound facts to /v0/channels/inbound and treats the response as admission state, not completed work,
4. claims lc_... pairing tokens through the kernel pairing API without starting an agent turn for the claim message,
5. downloads and stages Telegram files only after the kernel returns waiting_for_attachments,
6. long-polls /v0/channels/stream/pull for progress events,
7. starts Telegram typing from kernel queue/runtime status events,
8. renders long-running turns as one provisional Telegram message and edits it on throttled progress state changes,
9. renders inline buttons for safe active-turn controls such as status and stop,
10. intercepts Telegram-local commands such as /status and /stop without stealing runtime slash commands such as /compact,
11. leases provider deliveries from /v0/channels/outbox/pull,
12. sends Telegram messages from outbox leases and reports provider outcomes to /v0/channels/outbox/report,
13. submits worker health checks through /v0/channels/health/report,
14. advances its progress cursor through /v0/channels/stream/ack.

Prerequisites

• a configured LionClaw project instance
• Telegram bot token with DM access
• python3 and uv for source/development worker runs

Setup

Use the product path first:

printf 'TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=...\n' > telegram.env
lionclaw connect telegram --env-file ./telegram.env
lionclaw doctor

connect telegram installs or refreshes the channel skill, stores declared channel env in the selected instance home, and starts the background stack.

Direct worker invocation is for development and tests when you intentionally provide the LionClaw worker environment. Polling is the default. For webhook deployments, expose the worker's local receiver through HTTPS, set Telegram's webhook URL with the same secret_token, and run the worker with its normal LionClaw/Telegram env plus:

TELEGRAM_UPDATE_MODE=webhook \
TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_SECRET_TOKEN=... \
TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_HOST=127.0.0.1 \
TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_PORT=8080 \
TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_PATH=/telegram/webhook \
./skills/channel-telegram/scripts/worker

Notes

• LionClaw enforces scoped pairing (pending_approval -> approved grant through lionclaw channel pairing approve ...).
• The worker accepts Telegram message, edited_message, channel_post, and edited_channel_post updates when they contain usable text, captions, or supported media. Inline callback_query updates are accepted only for HMAC-scoped LionClaw button payloads generated by this worker.
• Telegram usernames and display names are metadata only. Authorization identity uses numeric Telegram ids encoded in stable refs.
• Private chats map to dm; group mentions and bot replies use Telegram entities and the bot's numeric id; leading bot mentions are stripped from the runtime-facing text and captions; forum topics map to scoped thread refs.
• Supported inbound media descriptors include photos, documents, audio, voice, video, stickers, video notes, and animations. Telegram locations and venues are forwarded as readable text with structured provider metadata. Provider files are not downloaded for pending, blocked, ignored, or duplicate inbound. Unsupported user content such as contacts, polls, dice, and paid media is acknowledged with a clear local reply in DMs and addressed group routes, and is not submitted to the runtime.
• Back-to-back text updates from the same Telegram route are coalesced into one inbound turn when they arrive in the same provider batch. Telegram media_group_id albums are coalesced before attachment staging so the runtime sees one turn with all album files.
• Pairing invite tokens can be claimed through Telegram with /start lc_<token>. DM links use https://t.me/<bot_username>?start=lc_<token>; group links use https://t.me/<bot_username>?startgroup=lc_<token> where Telegram exposes the payload to the bot. Approved Telegram hosts can create a short-lived one-use group link from /connections in DM; unconnected groups are instructed to use that link path rather than exposing pc_... operator approval codes. Connected groups authorize the destination only. The Telegram sender must also have an approved direct host grant before group prompts, runtime slash commands, or local group controls run.
• The worker defaults consumer_id to telegram:<channel_id> and start_mode=resume, so unacked progress events are replayed after worker restart. LIONCLAW_STREAM_START_MODE accepts resume or tail.
• Telegram delivery is outbox-driven: typing comes from progress streams, final answers come from durable outbox leases, no reasoning lane delivery.
• Telegram has its own visible command menu. In DMs, /help, /status, /stop, /settings, and /connections are channel-local controls. Session mutation commands stay namespaced as /lionclaw reset and /lionclaw retry; bare slash commands pass through to the runtime after Telegram-only addressing syntax is removed. Connected groups get chat-scoped /ask, /help, /status, /stop, and /settings menu commands. In groups, /ask message strips /ask and submits only the message body to the runtime; empty /ask opens a selective Telegram reply prompt for the asker. /stop uses the channel-safe active turn cancellation action with the expected turn id guard. Bot commands explicitly targeted at a different Telegram bot are never captured as LionClaw-local controls, even inside an active forum topic. In groups, commands with a leading bot mention, for example @lionclaw_bot /status, are treated like first-column bot commands; runtime slash commands are forwarded without the leading mention or @lionclaw_bot command target.
• Inline buttons carry compact HMAC-protected callback payloads bound to the conversation, topic, original Telegram sender, and active turn. Stale, wrong-route, or wrong-actor callbacks are acknowledged without mutating runtime state.
• Fast turns only show typing. Long turns create one provisional message after a short threshold, edit it at a throttled cadence, and delete it when the durable outbox answer is ready. Cancelled and failed turns leave a terminal status. Transient edit failures are retried; permanent edit failures disable editing for that message and fall back to a normal Telegram message. Transient delete failures are persisted under the channel runtime directory and retried after worker restart so stale provisional messages are cleaned up.
• The worker also sets best-effort Telegram reactions on the original inbound message as lightweight receipts: accepted, completed, stopped, or failed. Reaction failures are ignored because Telegram reactions are not available in every chat.
• Outbound text is sent as plain text by default. Markdown hints render to Telegram-safe HTML only when the rendered chunks fit Telegram limits; otherwise delivery falls back to plain text. Link previews stay disabled so local workspace paths do not become broken Telegram links.
• Outbox attachments are sent as native Telegram media where possible (sendPhoto, sendVideo, sendAudio/sendVoice) and fall back to documents by MIME type. Short text on media deliveries is used as the first attachment caption when the rendered caption fits Telegram's limits. Native Telegram media groups are used for compatible photo/video batches with two to ten attachments.
• Topic thread_ref and reply_to_ref are converted back into Telegram delivery parameters, and each outbox lease is reported with its attempt_id.
• Runtime selection comes from the selected instance's default runtime; workers do not send runtime_id in inbound requests.
• Polling mode stores Telegram offset in $LIONCLAW_HOME/runtime/channels/$LIONCLAW_CHANNEL_ID/telegram.offset by default. Webhook mode is enabled with TELEGRAM_UPDATE_MODE=webhook and requires TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_SECRET_TOKEN; TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_HOST, TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_PORT, TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_PATH, and TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_MAX_BODY_BYTES tune the local receiver.
• The worker reports health every 60 seconds by default, configurable with LIONCLAW_HEALTH_REPORT_INTERVAL_SECS. Checks cover a fresh Telegram getMe, polling or webhook intake health, update lag, malformed provider updates quarantined by the current worker process, and delivery failures observed by the current worker process.

Development Checks

Run these from the repository root when changing this skill:

uv run --project skills/channel-telegram black --check skills/channel-telegram/lionclaw_channel_telegram skills/channel-telegram/tests
uv run --project skills/channel-telegram ruff check skills/channel-telegram/lionclaw_channel_telegram skills/channel-telegram/tests
uv run --project skills/channel-telegram python -m unittest discover -s skills/channel-telegram/tests -q