Telegram Groups

[reef nimbus]

How do I give OpenClaw full chat permissions in Telegram groups? I have created a separate group for openclaw agent??

[tardy furnace]

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[plush plaza]

For Telegram groups there are two separate permission layers:

1. Telegram-side visibility

• Add your bot to the group.
• In BotFather, use /setprivacy and disable Privacy Mode if you want it to see all group messages.
• Or make the bot a group admin. Admin bots receive all group messages.
• After changing privacy mode, remove and re-add the bot to the group so Telegram applies it.

2. OpenClaw-side access/activation
   OpenClaw needs the group allowed under channels.telegram.groups, and group sender policy needs to match who may trigger it.

For a private group you created just for the agent, a simple “listen/reply without mention” config is:

{
  channels: {

[plush plaza]

    telegram: {
      enabled: true,
      botToken: "123:abc",

      // DM access is separate from group access
      dmPolicy: "pairing",

      // Group sender access
      groupPolicy: "open",

      // Which Telegram groups are admitted
      groups: {
        "-1001234567890": {
          requireMention: false
        }

[plush plaza]

      }
    }
  }
}

Replace -1001234567890 with your Telegram group chat ID. You can get it by:

• running openclaw logs --follow and sending a message in the group, then reading chat.id
• or calling Telegram Bot API getUpdates
• or forwarding a group message to a helper like @getidsbot

If you only want specific people in that group to trigger OpenClaw, keep groupPolicy: "allowlist" and use numeric Telegram user IDs:

{

[plush plaza]

  channels: {
    telegram: {
      groups: {
        "-1001234567890": {
          requireMention: true,
          allowFrom: ["8734062810"]
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Important bit: negative IDs like -100... are group IDs and go under channels.telegram.groups. User IDs go in allowFrom / groupAllowFrom.

Docs:

[plush plaza]

https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/telegram
https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/groups

If it still doesn’t respond, first thing to check is your version with openclaw --version, then openclaw status --all and openclaw logs --follow.

[reef nimbus]

can i put *

[plush plaza]

Yes, but it depends where you put it:

• groups: { "*": { ... } } = allow all Telegram groups the bot is in.
• groupAllowFrom: ["*"] = allow any user inside allowed groups to trigger it.
• allowFrom: ["*"] with open DM policy = allow anyone to DM the bot, which I would avoid unless you really mean public access.

For your private agent-only Telegram group, this is usually fine:

{
  channels: {
    telegram: {
      groupPolicy: "open",
      groups: {
        "*": { requireMention: false }
      }