Telegram

Polls the Telegram Bot API getUpdates method for bot-visible messages and mentions.

Pollen Types

Type	Description
telegram_mention	Text mentions/replies to the configured bot identity
telegram_message	Another message in an allowed chat

Setup

Create a bot with @BotFather, configure its privacy settings for the visibility you require, add it to the desired chats, and export the token:

export TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN="123456:..."
/hive hire telegram

Configuration

{
  "telegram": {
    "enabled": true,
    "token_env": "TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN",
    "watch_chats": [],
    "max_messages": 20,
    "bot_username": "my_bot",
    "bot_user_id": "123456"
  }
}

Field	Default	Description
token_env	TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN	Bot-token environment variable
watch_chats	[]	Unique numeric chat IDs; empty accepts all bot-visible chats
max_messages	20	getUpdates limit, from 1 to 100
bot_username	""	Bot username without @, used for mention matching
bot_user_id	""	Numeric bot user ID, used for entities/reply matching and self filtering

Telegram retains unconfirmed updates for no longer than 24 hours. Downtime beyond that provider window cannot be recovered by a polling adapter. Telegram also randomizes the next update ID after a quiet week; the scanner performs a no-offset queue probe before that boundary so a lower random ID is not accidentally acknowledged unseen. Ensure no webhook is configured for the same bot, because getUpdates and webhooks are mutually exclusive.