Telegram Bot Integration

Sidekick's Telegram adapter connects a Telegram bot to your AI so it can receive messages, respond to users, and take autonomous actions — all through the same unified pipeline as every other Sidekick integration.

Overview

The Telegram adapter bridges Telegram's Bot API with Sidekick's internal event system:

Incoming messages → normalized to UnifiedEvent
Outgoing replies → dispatched via UnifiedAction

This means your AI skills, automations, and workflows treat Telegram messages the same way they treat messages from any other connected platform.

Supported Message Types

Type	Receive	Send
Text	✅	✅
Images	✅	✅
Inline keyboards	—	✅
Group mentions (`@bot`)	✅	✅

How It Works

Receiving Messages

When a user or group sends a message to your connected bot, Telegram delivers an update to Sidekick. The adapter normalizes this update into a UnifiedEvent, which is then routed through the standard Sidekick event pipeline — the same pipeline used by every other chat adapter (Slack, Discord, etc.).

Telegram Update
    └─▶ Telegram Adapter
            └─▶ UnifiedEvent
                    └─▶ Sidekick AI pipeline

Sending Replies

When your AI produces a response, it emits a UnifiedAction. The Telegram adapter translates that action into the appropriate Telegram Bot API call and delivers it back to the originating chat.

Sidekick AI pipeline
    └─▶ UnifiedAction
            └─▶ Telegram Adapter
                    └─▶ Telegram Bot API (sendMessage / sendPhoto / etc.)

Group Chat Support

The adapter handles @bot mentions in group chats. When a group member mentions your bot, the event is captured, normalized, and processed just like a direct message.

Inline Keyboards

You can send interactive inline keyboards to users — for example, to present options or confirm an action. The adapter maps UnifiedAction payloads that include keyboard definitions to Telegram's InlineKeyboardMarkup format automatically.

Setting Up the Telegram Integration

Create a Telegram bot using @BotFather and copy the bot token.
In the Sidekick dashboard, go to Integrations → Messaging → Telegram.
Paste your bot token and click Connect.
Sidekick will verify the token and begin listening for updates.

No server, webhook endpoint, or manual configuration required — Sidekick handles bot polling and webhook registration automatically.

Unified Adapter Architecture

The Telegram adapter is built on Sidekick's standard adapter interface. All data flowing in and out is normalized to UnifiedEvent and UnifiedAction, so:

Existing skills and automations work with Telegram out of the box.
ClawHub community skills that target messaging platforms are automatically compatible.
Adding new Telegram-specific capabilities does not require changes to the core AI pipeline.