Telegram Setup Guide

Standard and above~5 minutes

Telegram is the fastest way to get started with your AI assistant. You will create a bot through Telegram's official BotFather, grab the bot token, and paste it into the FixedCostAgents portal. Your AI assistant will start responding to messages within minutes.

What you'll need

A Telegram account (free)
A FixedCostAgents account (any tier)

Step-by-step instructions

Open Telegram and find BotFather

Open the Telegram app (mobile or desktop) and search for @BotFather. BotFather is Telegram's official bot for creating and managing bots. Look for the verified checkmark next to the name.

Alternatively, open this link directly: t.me/BotFather

Create a new bot

Send the command /newbot to BotFather.

BotFather will ask you two questions:

Display name — the name that appears in chats (e.g., “Rose” or “My AI Assistant”). This can include spaces.
Username — a unique identifier that ends in “bot” or “_bot” (e.g., rose_assistant_bot). No spaces allowed.

Copy your bot token

After creating the bot, BotFather will send you a message containing your bot token. It looks like this:

1234567890:ABCdefGHIjklMNOpqrsTUVwxyz_12345678

Copy this token carefully. You will paste it into the FixedCostAgents portal in the next step.

Keep your bot token secret. Anyone with this token can control your bot. If you accidentally share it, use /revoke in BotFather to generate a new one. Never post your token in public channels, Git repos, or screenshots.

Add the token to the FixedCostAgents portal

Log into your FixedCostAgents customer portal and navigate to:

Assistants → [your AI assistant] → Integrations → Telegram

Paste the bot token into the Bot Token field and click Save.

Your AI assistant will automatically start polling Telegram for new messages. No webhook URL configuration is needed — Telegram polling is handled automatically.

Send your first message

Open Telegram and search for your bot by its username. Send /start to initiate the conversation, then try sending a message like “Hi, what can you do?”

Your AI assistant should respond within a few seconds. If you chose a personality during onboarding, you will see it reflected in the response.

(Optional) Customize your bot's profile

Back in BotFather, you can customize your bot's appearance:

/setuserpic — add a profile photo
/setdescription — set the text users see before starting a chat
/setabouttext — the short bio that appears on the bot's profile

Common issues

“My bot isn't responding”

Make sure you sent /start to the bot first.
Verify the bot token in the portal matches what BotFather gave you (no trailing spaces).
Check the AI assistant status in your portal dashboard — the AI assistant must be running.
Wait 30–60 seconds after saving the token. The AI assistant needs a moment to start polling.

Do not set a webhook URL in Telegram. Your AI assistant uses long polling (not webhooks) to receive Telegram messages. If you manually set a Telegram webhook via the API, it will conflict with polling and cause 409 errors. If you have set one previously, remove it by calling the Telegram API: https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/deleteWebhook

Group chats require explicit configuration. By default, your AI assistant only responds to direct messages from authorized users. To add the bot to a group chat, you need to enable group mode in your portal settings and add the group members to your authorized users list.

What to do next

Follow the First Week checklist — start with Meeting 1: say hello, verify your AI assistant responds, and give it a simple task.

Set up a second messaging platform (Slack, Discord, or email) to give your AI assistant more reach.

Teach your AI assistant your email voice by forwarding 50–200 sent emails — see the voice training guide.

Your bot token is encrypted at rest and stored securely. It is never stored in plaintext, never in environment variables, and never logged.

Stuck? Reach out at support@fixedcostagents.com or join our Discord community.

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