Claude Telegram Bot

Turn Claude Code into your personal assistant, accessible from anywhere via Telegram.

Send text, voice, photos, and documents. See responses and tools usage in real-time.

Claude Code as a Personal Assistant

I've started using Claude Code as a personal assistant, and I've built this bot so I can access it from anywhere.

In fact, while Claude Code is described as a powerful AI coding agent, it's actually a very capable general-purpose agent too when given the right instructions, context, and tools.

To achieve this, I set up a folder with a CLAUDE.md that teaches Claude about me (my preferences, where my notes live, my workflows), has a set of tools and scripts based on my needs, and pointed this bot at that folder.

→ 📄 See the Personal Assistant Guide for detailed setup and examples.

Bot Features

• 💬 Text: Ask questions, give instructions, have conversations
• 🎤 Voice: Speak naturally - transcribed via OpenAI and processed by Claude
• 📸 Photos: Send screenshots, documents, or anything visual for analysis
• 📄 Documents: PDFs, text files, and archives (ZIP, TAR) are extracted and analyzed
• 🔄 Session persistence: Conversations continue across messages
• 📨 Message queuing: Send multiple messages while Claude works - they queue up automatically. Prefix with ! or use /stop to interrupt and send immediately
• 🧠 Extended thinking: Trigger Claude's reasoning by using words like "think" or "reason" - you'll see its thought process as it works (configurable via THINKING_TRIGGER_KEYWORDS)
• 🔘 Interactive buttons: Claude can present options as tappable inline buttons via the built-in ask_user MCP tool

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/linuz90/claude-telegram-bot?tab=readme-ov-file
cd claude-telegram-bot-ts

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your credentials

bun install
bun run src/index.ts

Prerequisites

• Bun 1.0+ - Install Bun
• Claude Agent SDK - @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk (installed via bun install)
• Telegram Bot Token from @BotFather
• OpenAI API Key (optional, for voice transcription)

Claude Authentication

The bot uses the @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk which supports two authentication methods:

Method	Best For	Setup
CLI Auth (recommended)	High usage, cost-effective	Run claude once to authenticate
API Key	CI/CD, environments without Claude Code	Set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in .env

CLI Auth (recommended): The SDK automatically uses your Claude Code login. Just ensure you've run claude at least once and authenticated. This uses your Claude Code subscription which is much more cost-effective for heavy usage.

API Key: For environments where Claude Code isn't installed. Get a key from console.anthropic.com and add to .env:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-api03-...

Note: API usage is billed per token and can get expensive quickly for heavy use.

Configuration

1. Create Your Bot

1. Open @BotFather on Telegram
2. Send /newbot and follow the prompts to create your bot
3. Copy the token (looks like 1234567890:ABC-DEF...)

Then send /setcommands to BotFather and paste this:

start - Show status and user ID
new - Start a fresh session
resume - Pick from recent sessions to resume
stop - Interrupt current query
status - Check what Claude is doing
restart - Restart the bot

2. Configure Environment

Create .env with your settings:

# Required
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=1234567890:ABC-DEF...   # From @BotFather
TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS=123456789           # Your Telegram user ID

# Recommended
CLAUDE_WORKING_DIR=/path/to/your/folder    # Where Claude runs (loads CLAUDE.md, skills, MCP)
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...                      # For voice transcription

Finding your Telegram user ID: Message @userinfobot on Telegram.

File access paths: By default, Claude can access:

• CLAUDE_WORKING_DIR (or home directory if not set)
• ~/Documents, ~/Downloads, ~/Desktop
• ~/.claude (for Claude Code plans and settings)

To customize, set ALLOWED_PATHS in .env (comma-separated). Note: this overrides all defaults, so include ~/.claude if you want plan mode to work:

ALLOWED_PATHS=/your/project,/other/path,~/.claude

3. Configure MCP Servers (Optional)

Copy and edit the MCP config:

cp mcp-config.ts mcp-config.local.ts
# Edit mcp-config.local.ts with your MCP servers

The bot includes a built-in ask_user MCP server that lets Claude present options as tappable inline keyboard buttons. Add your own MCP servers (Things, Notion, Typefully, etc.) to give Claude access to your tools.

Bot Commands

Command	Description
/start	Show status and your user ID
/new	Start a fresh session
/resume	Pick from last 5 sessions to resume (with recap)
/stop	Interrupt current query
/status	Check what Claude is doing
/restart	Restart the bot

Running as a Service (macOS)

cp launchagent/com.claude-telegram-ts.plist.template ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.claude-telegram-ts.plist
# Edit the plist with your paths and env vars
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.claude-telegram-ts.plist

The bot will start automatically on login and restart if it crashes.

Prevent sleep: To keep the bot running when your Mac is idle, go to System Settings → Battery → Options and enable "Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off" (when on power adapter).

Logs:

tail -f /tmp/claude-telegram-bot-ts.log   # stdout
tail -f /tmp/claude-telegram-bot-ts.err   # stderr

Shell aliases: If running as a service, these aliases make it easy to manage the bot (add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc):

alias cbot='launchctl list | grep com.claude-telegram-ts'
alias cbot-stop='launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u)/com.claude-telegram-ts 2>/dev/null && echo "Stopped"'
alias cbot-start='launchctl bootstrap gui/$(id -u) ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.claude-telegram-ts.plist 2>/dev/null && echo "Started"'
alias cbot-restart='launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/com.claude-telegram-ts && echo "Restarted"'
alias cbot-logs='tail -f /tmp/claude-telegram-bot-ts.log'

Development

# Run with auto-reload
bun --watch run src/index.ts

# Type check
bun run typecheck

# Or directly
bun run --bun tsc --noEmit

Security

⚠️ Important: This bot runs Claude Code with all permission prompts bypassed. Claude can read, write, and execute commands without confirmation within the allowed paths. This is intentional for a seamless mobile experience, but you should understand the implications before deploying.

→ Read the full Security Model for details on how permissions work and what protections are in place.

Multiple layers protect against misuse:

1. User allowlist - Only your Telegram IDs can use the bot
2. Intent classification - AI filter blocks dangerous requests
3. Path validation - File access restricted to ALLOWED_PATHS
4. Command safety - Destructive patterns like rm -rf / are blocked
5. Rate limiting - Prevents runaway usage
6. Audit logging - All interactions logged to /tmp/claude-telegram-audit.log

Troubleshooting

Bot doesn't respond

• Verify your user ID is in TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS
• Check the bot token is correct
• Look at logs: tail -f /tmp/claude-telegram-bot-ts.err
• Ensure the bot process is running

Claude authentication issues

• For CLI auth: run claude in terminal and verify you're logged in
• For API key: check ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set and starts with sk-ant-api03-
• Verify the API key has credits at console.anthropic.com

Voice messages fail

• Ensure OPENAI_API_KEY is set in .env
• Verify the key is valid and has credits

Claude can't access files

• Check CLAUDE_WORKING_DIR points to an existing directory
• Verify ALLOWED_PATHS includes directories you want Claude to access
• Ensure the bot process has read/write permissions

MCP tools not working

• Verify mcp-config.ts exists and exports properly
• Check that MCP server dependencies are installed
• Look for MCP errors in the logs

License

MIT