Quickstart

From zero to texting your Claude Code session, on Telegram, in five steps.

What hotline is

hotline is an MCP server that relays a Claude Code session to your messaging apps. Claude replies in short bubbles with a typing indicator, reacts with emoji, edits its own messages to show progress, and offers inline buttons when it wants you to pick one thing. Telegram is the default provider; Signal and Discord run alongside it or on their own.

It speaks Claude Code's experimental two-way channel protocol (claude/channel), which makes it Claude Code specific today. Details and caveats on the protocol page.

Install

go install github.com/1broseidon/hotline@latest   # -> $(go env GOPATH)/bin/hotline

Requires Go 1.26+. No prebuilt binaries yet.

Set up Telegram

Get a bot token from @BotFather.

Drop it in the channel's .env:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/channels/tele-go
printf 'TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=123456789:AA…\n' > ~/.claude/channels/tele-go/.env
chmod 600 ~/.claude/channels/tele-go/.env

A real TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN environment variable wins over the .env file.

Register hotline as an MCP server in the project you want to text with, via .mcp.json:
```
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hotline": { "command": "hotline", "args": ["run"] }
  }
}
```
Start Claude Code with the channel flag (channels are experimental and loaded by MCP server name):
```
claude --dangerously-load-development-channels server:hotline
```
DM your bot. The first message from an unknown sender returns a 6-hex pairing code. Approve it from your terminal:
```
hotline pair <code>
```

That's it. Your session is now a Telegram chat. The pairing step is part of the access model; read Access & permissions before you hand the bot's handle to anyone.

The tools Claude gets

Tool	What it does
`reply`	Send `bubbles` (array of short messages, paced) or `text` (single message, chunked past 4096 chars). Optional `reply_to`, `files` (images inline, others as documents, 50MB each), `buttons` (up to 12 inline options), `format` (`text`, `markdownv2`, `html`)
`react`	Set an emoji reaction (Telegram's fixed whitelist)
`edit_message`	Edit a message the bot sent, for interim progress. Edits don't push-notify
`download_attachment`	Fetch a non-photo attachment by `file_id` into the inbox; returns a local path (Telegram's 20MB download cap applies)

Button taps come back as ordinary inbound messages whose content is the tapped label, verbatim. Tap authorization mirrors the inbound gate.

CLI

hotline [run]        # start the MCP server + Telegram poller (default)
hotline pair <code>  # approve a pending pairing code
hotline deny <code>  # reject a pending pairing code
hotline status       # print state-dir / token / access summary

pair, deny, and status take --provider kind[:instance] to select which provider's state they operate on (default: telegram).

Where things live

State lives in ~/.claude/channels/tele-go. The directory keeps its pre-rename name, so existing pairings, transcripts, and inboxes carry over: hotline was formerly tele-go, and TELE_GO_* variables keep working as fallbacks for one release. The full environment variable table is on Multiple providers.

next: Telegram in depth →