Telegram
Arcade.dev LLM tools for Telegram
1.1.2The Arcade Telegram toolkit provides LLM tools for interacting with Telegram via a bot account. It enables sending messages, polling for user input, retrieving chat metadata, and generating voice audio — all driven by bot-token authentication.
Capabilities
- Chat & identity inspection: Retrieve metadata (type, title, description, member count) for chats, groups, or channels; fetch the bot's own identity and capabilities.
- Messaging: Send text messages to any chat, group, or channel the bot has access to; supports inline button keyboards that collapse automatically on tap and return the selected option.
- Update polling & long-polling: Fetch pending private-chat messages via
getUpdates; wait (bounded long-poll) for the next new message or for an inline-button tap on a previously sent message, withtimed_outandnext_offsetcursors for resumable waits. Incompatible with active webhooks. - Text-to-speech audio: Convert text to speech via OpenAI TTS (MP3) and deliver it as an audio message to a Telegram chat.
Secrets
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN — The HTTP API token that authenticates your bot with Telegram. Create a bot and obtain its token by messaging @BotFather on Telegram: send /newbot, follow the prompts to choose a name and username, and BotFather will return a token in the format 123456:ABC-DEF.... Keep this token private; it grants full control of the bot. See Telegram's bot documentation for details.
OPENAI_API_KEY — An OpenAI API key used to call the TTS endpoint (Telegram.SendTtsAudio). Generate one in the OpenAI platform dashboard under API keys → Create new secret key. The key requires access to the tts-1 or tts-1-hd models; a standard paid-tier account provides this. If you do not use SendTtsAudio, this key is not needed.
Store both secrets in Arcade at https://api.arcade.dev/dashboard/auth/secrets. For full guidance on configuring tool secrets, see https://docs.arcade.dev/en/guides/create-tools/tool-basics/create-tool-secrets.
Available tools(7)
| Tool name | Description | Secrets | |
|---|---|---|---|
Get metadata about a Telegram chat, group, or channel.
Returns information including the chat type, title, description, and member count.
The bot must be a member of the chat to retrieve its information. | 1 | ||
Get recent private-chat messages sent to the bot via Telegram's getUpdates API.
Returns messages from private (1:1) chats only. Group and channel messages are
excluded for security — any group member could inject content into the response.
Only pending (unacknowledged) updates are returned.
The limit parameter controls how many raw Telegram updates are fetched, not how
many messages are returned. After filtering to private-chat messages for the
requested chat_id, the result may contain fewer items. has_more indicates whether
more updates exist on the server, not whether more messages exist for this chat.
Note: This retrieves updates delivered to the bot, not the full history of a chat.
Passing a non-zero offset permanently confirms all earlier updates — they cannot be
retrieved again. Returns newest messages last. | 1 | ||
Send a text message to a Telegram chat, group, or channel.
The bot must be a member of the target chat or have permission to send messages to the
specified channel.
When the message asks the recipient a question, prefer attaching the possible answers as inline
`buttons` rather than asking in free text. With buttons and wait_for_response (the default),
this call waits for the user to tap one and returns it as `selected_option` — the toolkit
collapses the keyboard to the choice automatically, so you do not react to the tap yourself. If
no tap arrives in the wait window, `timed_out` is true and `next_offset` lets you resume waiting
without re-sending. Reserve a plain (button-less) message for statements or genuinely
open-ended questions. | 1 | ||
Convert text to speech using OpenAI TTS and send it as an audio message on Telegram.
Generates an MP3 audio file from the provided text using OpenAI's text-to-speech API,
then sends it to the specified Telegram chat. | 2 | ||
Resume waiting for an inline-button tap on a message that was already sent with buttons.
Use this only to keep waiting after an earlier attempt's wait window elapsed without a tap — it
does NOT send anything. It is a bounded long-poll on Telegram's getUpdates: it waits a short
window for a tap on the given message, and when one happens the toolkit acknowledges it and
collapses the keyboard to the chosen option (no agent round-trip), returning the choice as
selected_option. If the window elapses with no tap, it returns timed_out=true with a
next_offset cursor to resume from again.
Cannot be used while the bot has an active webhook, because getUpdates and webhooks are
mutually exclusive. | 1 | ||
Wait for the next new message in a Telegram private chat, returning as soon as one arrives.
This is a bounded long-poll built on Telegram's getUpdates: it waits up to timeout_seconds
for a new message in the given chat. If one or more arrive, they are returned immediately
with timed_out set to false. If the budget elapses with nothing, it returns an empty message
list with timed_out set to true and a next_offset cursor, so you can call again with that
next_offset to keep waiting.
On the first call, leave offset at 0: the tool skips any already-pending backlog and waits for
messages that arrive after the call begins. To read pending messages without waiting,
retrieve the chat's recent messages instead.
Returns messages from private (1:1) chats only — group and channel messages are excluded for
security, since any group member could inject content. This tool cannot be used while the bot
has an active webhook, because getUpdates and webhooks are mutually exclusive. | 1 | ||
Get information about the Telegram bot.
Returns the bot's identity including its ID, username, and capabilities. | 1 |