Skip to main content

Telegram

The fastest channel to try Korvun with: create a bot with BotFather, export the token, add three lines of config. Korvun receives updates by polling, so it needs no public URL, no TLS setup, nothing exposed — it works from a laptop behind NAT.

Step 1 — Create the bot with @BotFather​

  1. Open @BotFather in Telegram.
  2. Send /newbot, pick a display name and a unique username.
  3. BotFather answers with the bot token — copy it.

The token is a secret. Anyone with it controls your bot. It goes in an environment variable — never in the config file, a commit, or a chat. If it ever leaks, revoke it in @BotFather: /mybots → your bot → API Token → Revoke current token.

Step 2 — Configure the channel​

Add a telegram channel and a route to your config. token_env is the name of the environment variable — the value never appears here:

{
  "channels": [
    { "type": "telegram", "mode": "polling", "token_env": "TELEGRAM_TOKEN" }
  ],
  "routes": [
    { "channel": "telegram", "brain": "assistant" }
  ]
}

mode is always "polling", and routes[].channel is the channel's type name (telegram). The brain is whatever you configured — the quickstart has a complete minimal file.

Step 3 — Export the token and run​

export TELEGRAM_TOKEN=<your-bot-token>
korvun config check --preflight korvun.local.json   # confirms the var resolves
korvun serve --config korvun.local.json

Open your bot in Telegram and send a message — the reply comes back in the chat, answered by whatever models the routed brain runs.

Good to know​

  • A DeleteWebhook WARN at startup is expected and harmless — Korvun proactively clears any leftover webhook before polling; on a bot that never had one, the safety-net call can warn without affecting anything.
  • Text in, text out is the v1 surface.

Next​