telegram

cc-telegram-plus

A community-maintained Telegram channel plugin for Claude Code that extends the official plugin with all media types, voice transcription, reply context, emoji reactions, inline buttons, multi-session management, and a comprehensive test suite. Drop-in compatible — reads the same config files, exposes the same commands.

Feature comparison

What you can do	Official	cc-telegram-plus
Send & receive text messages	✔	✔
Send & receive photos	✔	✔
Receive documents, video, audio	✘ text + photos only	✔ all media types
Receive voice messages	✘	✔ auto-transcribed
Receive stickers	✘	✔
Claude sends files as attachments	✔	✔
Claude reacts with emoji	✔	✔
User reactions forwarded to Claude	✘	✔ Claude sees feedback
Reply-chain context for Claude	✘ text only, no parent context	✔ walks up to 3 levels
Claude threads under user message	✔ reply_to	✔ reply_to
Claude sends inline buttons	✘	✔
Claude sends reply keyboards	✘	✔
Claude uses rich formatting	✘ plain text only	✔ MarkdownV2 + HTML
Switch between CC sessions	✘ random delivery	✔ managed switching
See which session is active	✘	✔ pinned status
Ack reaction auto-clears on reply	✘ stays forever	✔ auto-clears
See what Claude is doing	✘	✔ live tool progress
Approve permissions from phone	✘ terminal only	✔ Allow/Deny buttons
Answer prompts from phone	✘ terminal only	✔ AskUserQuestion → Telegram
Secrets redacted in replies	✘	✔ API keys, tokens, PEM keys scrubbed
Photo albums grouped	✘ each photo separate	✔ buffered into single notification
Activity verbosity control	✘	✔ silent / standard / verbose

Requirements

• Bun runtime
• Claude Code v2.1.81 or later
• Claude.ai login (console/API key auth not supported for channels)

Installation

# Remove the official plugin first (can't run both)
claude plugins uninstall telegram

# Install cc-telegram-plus from the local marketplace
claude plugins install telegram@local

Starting Claude Code with Telegram

Channels are a research preview feature. The official plugin is on the approved allowlist; community plugins like this one need the development flag:

# For the official plugin (on the approved allowlist):
claude --channels plugin:telegram@claude-plugins-official

# For cc-telegram-plus (community/development plugin):
claude --dangerously-load-development-channels plugin:telegram@local

Important: Do NOT combine --channels and --dangerously-load-development-channels for the same plugin — this creates duplicate entries and the --channels one fails the allowlist check. Use only --dangerously-load-development-channels for this plugin.

On first launch with the development flag, CC will show a warning and ask you to confirm. Select "I am using this for local development" to proceed.

Without the channels flag, the MCP tools will load but inbound Telegram messages will not be delivered to Claude.

Auto-approve reply tools (optional)

By default, Claude asks for permission each time it sends a Telegram message. To auto-approve, add the tools to your global settings:

Add to ~/.claude/settings.json under permissions.allow:

"mcp__plugin_telegram_telegram__reply",
"mcp__plugin_telegram_telegram__react",
"mcp__plugin_telegram_telegram__edit_message",
"mcp__plugin_telegram_telegram__fetch_media"

Or select "Yes, and don't ask again" when prompted during a session.

Setup (new users)

1. Create a bot via @BotFather on Telegram
2. Start Claude Code with the channels flag (see above)
3. Run /telegram:configure <token> in Claude Code
4. Restart Claude Code (with --channels) to load the bot token
5. Message your bot on Telegram — it will prompt for pairing
6. Run /telegram:access pair <code> to approve
7. Optional: /telegram:access policy allowlist to lock down

Migration from the official plugin

Your existing .env and access.json transfer automatically. cc-telegram-plus adds optional fields (ackReaction, replyToMode, etc.) that the official plugin ignores. Caveat: if you switch back, the official plugin may strip these additive fields when it rewrites access.json. Back up first.

Usage tips