# Telegram Connection

> Step-by-step: connect your Mind to Telegram using BotFather, configure your bot, and deploy a working bot in under 10 minutes.

Two steps — link your Telegram account once, then point a fresh bot at your Mind. Anyone who messages that bot is talking directly to your Mind — memory, tools, and personality intact.

**Meet users where they already are**

Your Mind lives inside Telegram. No app to install, no account to create, users just message
the bot.

**Full memory across surfaces**

Every Telegram conversation feeds the same long-term memory as the web chat. Your Mind knows
the history regardless of which surface it last heard from a user.

**Proactive by default**

Once linked, your Mind can send messages on a schedule or trigger, not just wait to be
asked. Configure triggers and schedules inside the Mind's tool config.

### Before you start

## What you'll need.

✓

**A Mind on hellominds.ai**

Any Mind works, it just needs to exist. Don't have one yet?
[Start with the Skill Building Guide](/docs/guides/building-skills)

✓

**A Telegram account**

Mobile, desktop, or web, any client works. You'll also use BotFather, Telegram's
official bot for creating bots.

✓

**About 10 minutes**

The actual linking takes ~2 minutes once you know the steps. Budget a little extra the first
time.

!

**Popups allowed for hellominds.ai**

Critical. The Telegram account link opens in a separate popup window. If your browser blocks
it, the page silently hangs.

### Important, two different steps

**Account link and Bot link are not the same thing.**

**1 · Account link (once per user)**

Connects your Minds account to your personal Telegram identity via OAuth. Done once, applies
to every Mind you own.

**2 · Bot link (once per Mind)**

Wires a specific Telegram bot to a specific Mind by pasting a BotFather API token. The Bot
section is grey-locked until the Account link is complete.

1

### Link your Telegram account

## Tell Minds who you are on Telegram.

This is an OAuth step — you're authorising Minds to verify your Telegram identity. It opens a
popup window, so make sure popups are allowed for hellominds.ai before you start.

1

**Open /profile and find the "Telegram Link Account" button.**

Go to hellominds.ai/profile. The top of the page shows your account card with two
integration buttons side-by-side: "X / Twitter Link Account" and "Telegram
Link Account". Click the Telegram one.

2

**A popup window appears, confirm your Telegram identity.**

Telegram's official Login Widget opens in a separate browser window. It asks "Log
in to Minds?" with your Telegram handle shown. Confirm. If you are not already logged
into Telegram in this browser, it will ask for your phone number first.

3

**The popup closes on its own.**

After you confirm, the popup closes automatically and the profile card updates to show your
Telegram handle. The "Telegram Link Account" button is replaced by your handle
(e.g. @YourTelegramHandle). The Bot section on every Mind you own is now unlocked.

**Stuck on "Linking…" forever?**

Your browser blocked the OAuth popup. The profile page is waiting on a message from a window
that was never allowed to open. To fix it: allow popups for hellominds.ai in your browser
settings, then refresh the page and click Link Account again. There is no in-page retry button,
a full page refresh is the only recovery.

2

### Create a bot with BotFather

## Get a bot token from Telegram.

BotFather is Telegram's official bot for creating and managing other bots. You'll have a short
conversation with it and it will give you a token — a string that Minds uses to control the bot
on your behalf.

1

**Open BotFather directly.**

Go to
[t.me/BotFather](https://t.me/BotFather)
and click **OPEN IN WEB**. Do not search
"BotFather" in Telegram's left-pane search, BotFather is invisible there
until you've chatted with it at least once. The direct link always works.

2

**Click the "START" button at the bottom of the chat.**

BotFather sends its full command list. You can ignore most of it, you only need /newbot for
this guide.

3

**Send /newbot.**

Type /newbot in the message box and click the paper-plane send button. BotFather replies:
"Alright, a new bot. How are we going to call it? Please choose a name for your
bot."

4

**Send the display name.**

This is the name users see at the top of the chat. Spaces and most characters are allowed.
Example: "Acme Support Bot". BotFather confirms and asks for a username next.

5

**Send the username.**

Bot usernames must end in bot, contain only letters, numbers, and underscores, and be
globally unique across all of Telegram. Example: acme_support_bot. If your first choice is
taken, BotFather says so and asks again, no need to restart.

6

**Copy the token BotFather gives you.**

On success, BotFather replies: "Done! Congratulations on your new bot." and
includes a line starting with "Use this token to access the HTTP API:" followed by
a string in the form numeric_id:35-character-string. Copy that entire string, you'll
paste it into Minds in Step 3.

**Keep your token private.**

Anyone with the token can drive your bot, send messages, change its name, read its
conversations. Treat it like a password. If you accidentally share it, open BotFather, send
/revoke,
select the bot, and paste the new token into Minds using the
**Update** button.

**Using Telegram Web?**

Use
[web.telegram.org/k/#@BotFather](https://web.telegram.org/k/#@BotFather)
, the /k/ client follows the deep link directly into the BotFather chat. The /a/ client silently
ignores the hash and lands on your chat list instead. Also: if your message appears as
"Draft" rather than sending, click into the input field explicitly and use the send
button rather than pressing Enter.

3

### Connect the bot to your Mind

## Paste the token. Done.

Back on Minds, you'll paste the token into a single field. The platform registers a webhook
with Telegram in a few seconds and the bot is live.

1

**Open your Mind's detail page.**

From hellominds.ai/profile, click the Mind you want to wire up. You land on the Mind detail
page.

2

**Find the "Telegram Integration" panel.**

It has two columns: Account and Bot. The Account column already shows your Telegram handle
from Step 1. The Bot column now has an active "Link Bot" button.

3

**Click "Link Bot".**

A modal titled "Link Telegram Bot" opens with a single Bot Token field and
placeholder text "Enter Telegram Bot Token".

4

**Paste the token and click Link Bot.**

Paste the token you copied from BotFather. Click Link Bot. The button briefly shows Linking…
while the platform registers a webhook with Telegram.

5

**Confirm the green Linked badge.**

The modal closes and the Bot column shows a green Linked badge alongside two new buttons:
Update (swap to a new token) and Unlink (disconnect the bot).

6

**Send your Mind a message on Telegram.**

Open your bot, t.me/your_bot_username, press START, and send a message. Your Mind responds.
Make sure the Mind's status is set to Online on the detail page, and that it has
Cognition credits available.

**What "Linked" means.**

From this moment, every message any user sends to that bot is routed to your Mind. Replies use
the same memory, tools, and persona as the web chat, it's one Mind, multiple surfaces. The bot
belongs to your Telegram account; the connection belongs to this Mind. One bot can only be
linked to one Mind at a time.

### UI reference, what each state looks like

Before account link
Link Account (button)
Disabled, greyed out with helper text

After account link
@YourTelegramHandle
Link Bot (active button)

After bot link
@YourTelegramHandle
✓ Linked · Update · Unlink

### Troubleshooting

##