# Adding Telegram as a Channel

URL: https://stevekinney.com/courses/openclaw/adding-telegram-as-a-channel
Canonical: https://stevekinney.com/courses/openclaw/adding-telegram-as-a-channel
Author: Steve Kinney
Language: en-US
Modified: 2026-10-08T12:21:31.000Z
Description: Create a Telegram bot with BotFather, connect it to OpenClaw as a channel, and pair your account so you can chat with your agent.
Course: OpenClaw
Course URL: https://stevekinney.com/courses/openclaw

---

First, we're going to go find [BotFather](https://t.me/BotFather) on Telegram and then we're going to use the `/newbot` command.

![Typing the /newbot command in a chat with BotFather](<https://s2mkrsfdifk0dskd.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/images/68d57bbbe21ae407/original.png>)

You'll be asked to give your bot a name and then—subsequently—a username. When that is all set up, you'll get a token that you can use.

![BotFather's confirmation message with the new bot's HTTP API token redacted](<https://s2mkrsfdifk0dskd.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/images/ce9580e3fa352140/original.png>)

> [!WARNING]
> Anyone with that token can control your bot. Keep it secret and don't paste it into public chats or commit it to a repository.

From there, we'll use that token to set it up in OpenClaw as a channel.

```bash
openclaw channels add --channel telegram --token <YOUR_BOT_TOKEN>
```

Once you message your bot for the first time, you'll see that it's still going to need to be paired.

![The bot replying that access is not configured, with a pairing code and an approval command](<https://s2mkrsfdifk0dskd.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/images/3b3692c8988f7825/original.png>)

Run the approval command from the message on the machine hosting OpenClaw. Once we've done that, we should be good to go.

If other people may communicate with the agent, configure `session.dmScope` to `"per-channel-peer"`.

Once you can talk to your bot, read [Choosing a DM Policy](choosing-a-dm-policy.md) to decide who else should be able to.