terrylica Draft a Telegram Message (via Saved Messages)
Send a message to the user's Saved Messages so the user can review it, optionally edit it, then copy-paste it into the target chat's compose area before sending. Saved Messages is every Telegram account's built-in private chat with itself — it syncs across all clients automatically.
Why Saved Messages, not MTProto cloud drafts? The official Telegram clients have a known unfixed race condition (tdesktop#29111, closed "not planned") where the local empty-draft state silently overwrites cloud drafts pushed via
SaveDraftRequestfrom another authorization. We observed this in practice: the server confirmed the draft, but the user's compose area stayed empty. Saved Messages bypasses this entirely — full HTML formatting is preserved, and Telegram's native copy-paste between compose areas preserves rich text across iOS, Android, Desktop, and Web.
Self-Evolving Skill: This skill improves through use. If instructions are wrong, parameters drifted, or a workaround was needed — fix this file immediately, don't defer. Only update for real, reproducible issues.
When To Use Draft vs. Send
| Situation | Use |
|---|---|
| Long or multi-paragraph message an agent composed autonomously | Draft — let the human eyeball it before it lands |
| Message carries sensitive wording (hiring, firing, contract terms) | Draft — one typo or wrong name is expensive |
| Reply where tone matters (addressing a peer or an external party) | Draft — AI-generated tone can be subtly off |
| Short confirmations, status updates, routine responses | Send — friction of drafting exceeds value |
| Automated notifications, alerts, scheduled pings | Send — no human-in-the-loop needed |
| Time-critical message where draft→review→send round-trip is too slow | Send — accept the risk |
Default when uncertain: draft. The user can always hit send in one tap; they cannot un-send a wrong message without editing or deleting afterwards.
Preflight
Before drafting, verify the session is authorized (not just that the file exists):
bun "$SCRIPT" check-auth
If EXPIRED, run /tlg:setup first.
Usage: tg-cli.ts draft
/usr/bin/env bash << 'DRAFT_EOF'
ROOT="$(cc-plugin-root tlg)"
SCRIPT="$ROOT/scripts/tg-cli.ts"
# Draft a plain-text message labelled for a group
bun "$SCRIPT" draft -1003958083153 "Plain text draft goes here"
# Draft an HTML-formatted message
bun "$SCRIPT" draft --html -1003958083153 "<b>Bold heading</b>
Body text with <code>inline code</code> and a <a href=\"https://example.com\">link</a>."
# Draft labelled for a user
bun "$SCRIPT" draft @someusername "Quick question: does this framing land right?"
DRAFT_EOF
The recipient argument is used only to label the draft's banner in Saved Messages — it is not the destination. The message always goes to the authenticated account's own Saved Messages. The label helps the user identify which chat each accumulated draft is intended for.
How It Appears in Saved Messages
Two messages are sent per draft:
- Header banner —
<b>Draft → <chat name></b>(falls back to the raw recipient identifier if the chat name cannot be resolved) - Body — the drafted content with the requested formatting
Keeping the header separate lets the user long-press only the body, tap Copy, and paste cleanly into the target chat's compose area without having to trim the banner.
Workflow Pattern For AI Agents
- Compose the message in your response
- Call the draft command — the message lands in the user's Saved Messages, NOT the target chat
- Tell the user: "Draft for
<chat name>saved to your Saved Messages. Open Saved Messages → long-press the body → Copy → paste into the target chat's compose area → review → send." - The user performs the copy-paste; they remain both sender and final reviewer
- If edits are needed, they happen in the target chat's compose area before sending
Drafts are your reviewer safety net — a deliberate pause between AI authorship and human publication.
Parameters
| Parameter | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| recipient | string/int | Target chat ID/username — used only to label the Saved Messages banner |
| message | string | Draft text (required) |
--html |
flag | Parse message as HTML (bold/code/links) |
-p/--profile |
string | Account profile (eon default) |
Behavior Details
- Drafts append, they do not replace. Each
draftcall sends a new(header, body)pair to Saved Messages. Older drafts remain visible above — the user can mentally track which is latest by position. - Long drafts auto-split. The body is auto-split at ~3900 plain chars per Telegram's 4096 hard limit. Split boundaries prefer
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━separators, then paragraph breaks, then line breaks. Each continuation part is labelled<i>(Part N/M)</i>. Seesend-messageSKILL.md "Auto-split for long messages" for the full algorithm. - Formatting is preserved end-to-end. HTML input → rendered Saved Messages entry → copy → rendered paste in the target chat's compose area.
- No cloud-draft race conditions. Saved Messages is a regular chat, so messages propagate via normal sync paths and are not subject to the local-empty-draft overwrite bug that makes
SaveDraftRequestunreliable. - Silent from the target chat's perspective. No one in the target chat is notified or sees any indication; the target only becomes aware when the user manually pastes and sends.
Anti-Patterns
| Anti-Pattern | Why It Fails |
|---|---|
| Drafting when the message is short and boilerplate | Wastes the user's time — they could send directly and edit in the compose area |
| Drafting many messages in rapid succession | Saved Messages becomes a wall of stale drafts; hard to tell which is current |
| Using draft for time-critical alerts (downtime, outages) | User may not open Saved Messages until hours later |
| Claiming a draft was "sent to the group" | Be explicit: "Draft saved to Saved Messages for your review" vs. "Message sent" |
| Forgetting to tell the user to paste into the target chat | The draft sits in Saved Messages forever if the user doesn't know the next step |
Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
Cannot find any entity |
Bad username/chat ID | Label falls back to raw identifier — draft still saves to Saved Messages |
Session expired |
Session no longer valid | Run /tlg:setup |
Relationship to Other TLG Skills
send-message— use when no human review is needed; includes edit-vs-supplement discipline for already-sent messagesdraft-message(this) — use when human review IS needed before sendsearch-messages— useful for checking existing chat context before drafting a reply
Post-Execution Reflection
After this skill completes, check before closing:
- Did the draft land in Saved Messages? Confirm by asking the user to check their Saved Messages.
- Did the user paste into the target chat successfully? If formatting broke on paste, report the specific client (iOS/Android/Desktop/Web) so the Behavior Details section can be updated with a client-specific caveat if a regression appears.
- Was draft the right choice vs. send? If the user immediately copy-pasted and sent without edits, draft was overkill — consider sending directly next time for similar messages.
Only update this SKILL.md if the issue is real and reproducible.