sase-telegram is a plugin for sase that provides two-way Telegram integration. It sends notifications to Telegram when you're away from the TUI, and lets you respond to plan approvals, HITL requests, user questions, and even launch new agents — all from Telegram.
pip install sase-telegramOr with uv:
uv pip install sase-telegramRequires sase>=0.1.0 as a dependency (installed automatically).
Installing sase-telegram adds the following commands:
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
sase_chop_tg_outbound |
Send pending notifications to Telegram (supports --dry-run) |
sase_chop_tg_inbound |
Poll Telegram for user responses and process them |
| Type | Telegram Behavior |
|---|---|
| Plan Approval | Shows plan content with Tale / ✅ Approve / Epic / Legend / Reject / Feedback buttons |
| HITL Request | Shows request notes with Accept / Reject / Feedback buttons |
| User Question | Shows question with dynamic option buttons + Custom input |
| Workflow Complete | Sends a summary message with diff/chat attachments and a Resume copy button |
| Agent Launched | Shows provider/model label, workspace number, prompt snippet, and Resume / Wait / Kill / Retry buttons |
| Agent Killed | Confirms termination with a Retry copy button to re-launch with the same prompt |
| Error Digest | Sends error summary with digest file attachments |
| Image Generated | Sends model name and generated image inline |
- Activity-aware sending — only sends when SASE's TUI idle state says you're inactive
- Rate limiting — sliding-window rate limiter prevents message flooding
- Exclusive outbound locking — prevents concurrent outbound runs from duplicating sends
- Two-step feedback — press a Feedback/Custom button, then type your response
- Agent launching — send a text message to spawn a new sase agent from Telegram
- Auto-naming — agents launched from Telegram automatically get assigned names
- xprompt expansion — agent prompts expand xprompt references (e.g.
#mentor) - Multi-model directives — use
%m(opus,sonnet)to launch the same prompt across multiple models - Copy-text buttons — Resume, Wait, Retry, plan, and ChangeSpec buttons copy pre-filled text to your clipboard
- Photo/document handling — send photos or image documents to launch agents with visual context
- Slash commands —
/list,/kill [<name>],/resume,/changes [project],/xprompts,/bead [<id>],/updatefor agent management, ChangeSpec, xprompt, bead, and SASE update workflows from Telegram (registered withset_my_commandsso they show up in the chat input UI) - PDF attachments — Markdown attachments are rendered to PDF through the shared SASE renderer when possible
- Large content handling — auto-truncates long plans and notes; uses expandable blockquotes for medium content
- Message splitting — messages exceeding Telegram's 4096-character limit are automatically split
- Parse mode fallback — falls back to plain text if MarkdownV2 rendering fails
| Source | Description |
|---|---|
pass show telegram_sase_bot_token |
Bot token (retrieved from pass) |
SASE_TELEGRAM_BOT_CHAT_ID |
Chat ID to send messages to |
SASE_TELEGRAM_BOT_USERNAME |
Bot username |
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
SASE_TELEGRAM_RATE_LIMIT |
8/15 |
Rate limit as max_messages/window_seconds |
SASE_TELEGRAM_LAUNCH_AGENTS_DISABLED |
unset | When present with any value, inbound callbacks, feedback, and slash commands still work, but plain text/photo/image-document messages do not launch agents. |
Note: Idle detection is handled by sase's TUI process (which writes an idle state file). The outbound script reads this state — there is no separate inactivity threshold to configure in sase-telegram.
The outbound script acquires an exclusive file lock (to prevent concurrent runs from duplicating sends), checks if you're inactive (via sase's TUI activity tracking), loads unsent notifications using a high-water mark timestamp, and formats them as Telegram MarkdownV2 messages with inline keyboards. Long plans are wrapped in expandable blockquotes or truncated and paired with a document attachment. Chat file attachments are trimmed to just the response portion, with commit messages and diffs embedded into the response PDF when possible. Actionable notifications (plan approvals, HITL requests, user questions) are saved as pending actions for the inbound script to match against.
The inbound script fetches Telegram button presses, text messages, and photo/document uploads. It processes inline keyboard callbacks (approve/run/reject/select/epic/legend, agent controls, and bead pickers), handles two-step feedback flows (Feedback/Custom button followed by a reply or single active text response), and writes response files for sase to pick up. Text messages that don't complete a feedback flow are dispatched as follows:
- Slash commands (
/list,/kill [<name>],/resume,/changes [project],/xprompts,/bead [<id>],/update) — agent management, ChangeSpec workflow tag lookup, xprompt catalog export, bead inspection, and SASE updates - Other slash commands (
/start, unknown commands, etc.) — silently ignored - Everything else — launches a new sase agent with the message as the prompt
Agent launches expand xprompt references, support multi-model directives, and auto-assign names. Launch confirmation messages include Resume and Wait copy-text buttons plus Kill and Retry controls for quick follow-up actions.
Set SASE_TELEGRAM_LAUNCH_AGENTS_DISABLED on hosts that should process Telegram callbacks, feedback, and slash commands
without launching new agents from free-form text, photos, or image documents. The check is presence-based, so an empty
value still disables launches; ignored launch messages are logged without a Telegram acknowledgement.
/changes lists active ChangeSpecs, excluding Submitted, Archived, and Reverted entries. Use /changes <project> to
filter by exact project name. Each result has a copy-text button for the bare workflow tag, such as #hg:foobar.
/bead lists active beads across all known SASE projects as picker buttons. /bead <id> runs sase bead show <id>,
converts the output to Telegram MarkdownV2, and sends the bead details in chat. If SASE_TELEGRAM_BEAD_PROJECT is set,
bead commands are narrowed to that project workspace. Without the override, detail lookup searches known projects and
prefers the chat-scoped project remembered from recent Telegram launch context.
/update starts the shared SASE chat update worker in a detached process and immediately replies with the worker log
path. The worker stops axe, syncs the primary SASE workspace, runs chat_install.command from that workspace, and
attempts to start axe again even when sync or install fails. After the worker exits, the next inbound run sends a
completion message that reports success or the failure exit code and includes the worker log path.
Slash command registration is cached in ~/.sase/telegram/commands_registered_ts, but the cache includes a fingerprint
of the command list so renamed commands are registered immediately after deployment.
State files are stored under ~/.sase/telegram/:
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
pending_actions.json |
Pending notification, kill, retry, and bead callback context |
rate_limit.json |
Sliding-window send timestamps |
update_offset.txt |
Last processed Telegram update ID |
awaiting_feedback.json |
Active two-step feedback flow state, keyed by Telegram message |
last_sent_ts |
High-water mark for outbound notifications |
outbound.lock |
Exclusive lock for outbound process |
outbound_debug.log |
Diagnostic log for outbound sends |
commands_registered_ts |
Cached timestamp and fingerprint for Telegram slash command registration |
images/ |
Downloaded photos from Telegram messages |
- Python 3.12+
- sase >= 0.1.0
- python-telegram-bot >= 21.0
- pass (for bot token retrieval)
- PDF tooling supported by SASE's shared Markdown renderer (optional, for PDF generation)
just install # Install in editable mode with dev deps
just fmt # Auto-format code
just lint # Run ruff + mypy
just test # Run tests
just check # All checks (lint + test)
just build # Build distribution packages
just clean # Remove build artifactssrc/sase_telegram/
├── __init__.py # Package init
├── callback_data.py # Encode/decode inline keyboard callback data (64-byte limit)
├── credentials.py # Bot token (via pass), chat ID and username (env vars)
├── formatting.py # Notification → Telegram MarkdownV2 formatting + inline keyboards
├── inbound.py # Pure logic: callback decoding, two-step feedback, photo handling
├── bead_format.py # Convert `sase bead` output to Markdown for Telegram rendering
├── outbound.py # High-water mark tracking, exclusive lock, unsent detection
├── pending_actions.py # Persist pending actions to JSON (24h stale cleanup)
├── rate_limit.py # Sliding-window rate limiter (configurable via env var)
├── telegram_client.py # Sync wrapper with retry/backoff and message splitting
├── pdf_convert.py # Markdown to PDF via SASE's shared renderer
├── pdf_style.css # CSS styling for rendered PDF output
└── scripts/
├── __init__.py # Re-exports inbound_main and outbound_main
├── sase_tg_outbound.py # Outbound entry point (--dry-run, --context)
└── sase_tg_inbound.py # Inbound entry point (--once, --context)
MIT