Run your agent on Telegram

Telegram is the most popular way to talk to a self-hosted agent — voice memos transcribe themselves, group chats work, and replies reach you anywhere. Onepilot configures the Telegram channel for your OpenClaw or Hermes agent right in the app, then gives you the host itself over SSH.

TL;DR

Both OpenClaw and Hermes answer on Telegram, and Onepilot wires it for you in the app: you create a bot with BotFather, paste the token and your numeric user ID into the deploy wizard, and the agent goes live on the channel. Voice memos auto-transcribe, group chats support @mention gating, and the agent keeps running on your host. Because Onepilot connects over a real SSH tunnelrather than a browser WebUI, you also get the host's terminal, file browser, git, and cron on your phone — the conversation on Telegram, the control in the app.

Wire your agent's Telegram bot from the Onepilot app — one email when it ships on the App Store.

What Telegram gives your agent

Voice in, text out (and back). Send a voice memo and the agent transcribes it and acts; it can reply with text or proactive messages when a long-running task finishes. It is the closest thing to texting a capable assistant.

Group chats with @mention gating. Drop the agent into a group and it only responds when addressed, so it works as a shared team or household assistant without talking over everyone.

It's where your phone already lives. Telegram is installed, logged in, and pushes reliably — no extra app to babysit for the conversation layer.

How Onepilot configures Telegram for you

Setting up a Telegram bot by hand means juggling BotFather, a token, your user ID, and the agent's gateway config over SSH. Onepilot collapses that into a wizard step: pick Telegram during deploy, paste the BotFather token and your numeric user ID (so only you can command the agent), and it writes the gateway config on the host and starts the bot.

The same flow works whether you deployed OpenClaw or Hermes — the channel layer is the same in the app, even though the frameworks differ underneath.

Channel for the conversation, app for the control

Telegram is great for talking to the agent, but it can't show you the host. When you need to read the skill files the agent wrote, inspect a git diff to see what it changed, tail a log, or run a command to fix something, that needs shell access. Onepilot's SSH tunnel gives you exactly that — a real terminal, a syntax-highlighted file browser, git, and cron — alongside the Telegram conversation. Most single-purpose Telegram setups stop at chat; Onepilot gives you the machine too, for OpenClaw and Hermes alike.

FAQ

Can I run OpenClaw or Hermes on Telegram?

Yes — both OpenClaw and Hermes support Telegram as a channel, and Onepilot configures it for you in the app. You create a bot with BotFather, paste the token and your numeric user ID into the deploy wizard, and Onepilot writes the gateway configuration on your host and starts the bot. From then on you chat with the agent in Telegram, including voice memos that auto-transcribe and group chats with @mention gating.

Does Onepilot set up the Telegram bot, or do I do it manually?

Onepilot sets it up. The only manual part is creating the bot with BotFather and getting your user ID — both quick. You paste those into the Onepilot wizard, and the app handles the rest over SSH: writing the channel config on the host, wiring the token, and starting the gateway. You don't edit config files by hand.

Do voice messages work?

Yes. Telegram voice memos are auto-transcribed by the agent and acted on, and the agent can reply by text. Telegram is generally the most reliable channel for voice because of how it encodes audio. This works the same for OpenClaw and Hermes once the channel is configured.

Can other people use my agent in a group?

You control that. In a group chat the agent responds only when @mentioned, and you can restrict who it listens to. Onepilot configures the user-ID gating during setup so the agent answers you (and anyone you allow) rather than every message in a busy group.

What if I need more than chat?

That's the point of using Onepilot rather than a chat-only client. Telegram handles the conversation, but the app also opens a real SSH tunnel to the host, giving you a terminal, a file browser to read the agent's skill files, a git tab for real diffs, and cron. So you can talk to the agent on Telegram and still operate the machine it runs on from the same app.

Put your agent on Telegram

Drop your email and we'll send one note when Onepilot ships on the App Store.