Mainstream messaging
Telegram events and operations
Operational Telegram surfaces: reaction wakes, config writes, and what the bot says when something fails.
Events and operations
Reaction notifications
Telegram reactions arrive as message_reaction updates, separate from message payloads. When enabled, OpenClaw enqueues system events like Telegram reaction added: 👍 by Alice (@alice) on msg 42.
channels.telegram.reactionNotifications:off | own | all(default:own)channels.telegram.reactionLevel:off | ack | minimal | extensive(default:minimal)
own means user reactions to bot-sent messages only (best-effort via a sent-message cache). Reaction events still respect Telegram access controls (dmPolicy, allowFrom, groupPolicy, groupAllowFrom); unauthorized senders are dropped.
Telegram does not provide topic metadata in reaction updates. Ordinary non-forum groups remain chat-scoped. Forum and channel Direct Messages reactions recover the originating topic from OpenClaw's bounded message cache (keyed by account, chat, and message ID), so topic config, topic agents, and conversation bindings still apply. If the cached topic is missing or belongs to the wrong scope, OpenClaw skips the reaction notification and logs a warning instead of falling back to General or the base chat.
allowed_updates for polling/webhook include message_reaction automatically.
Config writes from Telegram events and commands
Channel config writes are enabled by default (configWrites !== false). Telegram-triggered writes include group migration events (migrate_to_chat_id, updates channels.telegram.groups) and /config set / /config unset (requires command enablement).
Disable:
{channels: {telegram: { configWrites: false,},},}Error reply controls
When the agent hits a delivery or provider error, the error policy controls whether error messages reach the Telegram chat:
| Key | Values | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
channels.telegram.errorPolicy |
always, once, silent |
always |
always sends every error message to the chat. once sends each unique error message once per built-in cooldown window. silent never sends error messages to the chat. |
Per-account, per-group, and per-topic overrides are supported (same inheritance as other Telegram config keys).
{ channels: { telegram: { errorPolicy: "always", groups: { "-1001234567890": { errorPolicy: "silent", // suppress errors in this group }, }, }, },}