Telegram

Telegram uses the official Bot API. You create a bot through Telegram's @BotFather, paste the token into Fabric Agents, and every DM to your bot drives a session.

1. Create a bot

1. Open Telegram and message @BotFather.

2. Send /newbot.

3. Pick a display name (what shows up in chats) and a username (must end in bot, e.g. my_fabric_bot).

4. BotFather replies with a token that looks like:

   123456789:AAH...long-string...xyz

5. Copy that token. Don't share it — it's the full credential for the bot.

Optional but recommended — still chatting with BotFather:

• /setdescription — shown in the bot's profile.

• /setuserpic — upload an avatar.

• /setcommands — preload the slash commands Fabric Agents supports, so Telegram auto-completes them:

  new - Create a new session and bind this chat
  bind - Pick from recent sessions
  pair - Redeem a 6-digit pairing code
  status - Show the session bound to this chat
  stop - Abort the current agent run
  unbind - Disconnect this chat from its session
  help - List available commands

2. Connect Telegram in Fabric Agents

1. Open Fabric Agents → Settings → Messaging.
2. Click Connect on the Telegram row.
3. Paste the token.
4. Click Test connection — you should see a green check and your bot's username.
5. Click Save.

The token is stored in your OS keychain. Telegram now shows as connected and is listening for messages.

3. Start a session from your phone

Open Telegram, search for the bot's username (the one ending in bot), and send:

/help

The bot replies with the command list. Then:

/new my first agent

A new session appears in your workspace sidebar. Every subsequent message you send in that Telegram chat flows into the agent; replies come back in the chat.

4. Attachments

Telegram supports sending files to the agent. The bot accepts any of:

Caption text sent with an attachment is treated as the user's message for that turn.

5. Response modes

Default is progress — one evolving message per run. Change it in Settings → Messaging → ⋯ on the binding row → Response mode.

See Messaging overview — response modes for details.

6. Adding the bot to a group

Telegram bots can be added to groups, but Fabric Agents is tuned for DMs — only direct messages currently drive sessions. Group messages are ignored.

Reconfigure or disconnect

• Reconfigure — Settings → Messaging → ⋯ on Telegram row → Reconfigure. Paste a new token (e.g. after you rotate via /revoke in BotFather).
• Disconnect — same menu → Disconnect. The bot stops polling; bindings are preserved, so reconnecting later resumes them.

Troubleshooting

"Not a valid bot" — the token is wrong or the bot was deleted. Re-issue with /token in BotFather or create a fresh bot.

Messages aren't reaching the agent — check Settings → Messaging. The Telegram row should show "Connected as @yourbot". If it shows "Disconnected", click Connect and test again.

Bot stops responding after a while — Telegram revokes tokens if another poller connects with the same token. Make sure you're not running two Fabric Agents instances (or any other bot framework) with the same token.

Auto-reconnect after failures — when Telegram polling stops for any reason (most commonly a 409 Conflict from a second instance grabbing the same token), Fabric Agents now schedules a reconnect with exponential backoff: 30s for 409 (so the competing process has time to exit), 5s for other errors, capped at 5 minutes. You don't need to click Connect manually — the gateway tries on its own and resumes routing as soon as Telegram accepts polling again. If reconnect keeps failing, the messaging-gateway.log records a warn line (adapter_not_connected) the moment the gateway drops a session event, so the underlying outage isn't silent.

Related

• Messaging overview — response modes, bindings, workspace scoping
• Command reference — every slash command
• WhatsApp setup — alternative platform