Telegram

Telegram is Anthropic's official first-party plugin for Claude Code that turns a self-created Telegram bot into a full chat channel wired into a running Claude Code session. Instead of keeping a terminal window open, you can address Claude Code from Telegram itself: the bot forwards incoming messages into the session, and Claude can reply, react with emoji, and edit messages it already sent. The plugin lives in Anthropic's own, officially maintained claude-plugins-official repository, under external_plugins/telegram, and carries an "Anthropic verified" badge on its marketplace page at claude.com/plugins/telegram — with, per that page's own count, over 100,000 installs one of the most widely used entries in the entire Claude plugin directory.

An official Anthropic plugin, not a community bot

The anthropics/claude-plugins-official repository is Anthropic's own curated collection of high-quality Claude Code plugins and itself carries tens of thousands of GitHub stars. The Telegram folder contains the actual MCP server (server.ts, built on the official @modelcontextprotocol/sdk and the grammy Telegram bot library) alongside its own LICENSE file, a README, and a detailed ACCESS.md covering access control. That sets this entry apart from the many unofficial third-party Telegram MCP servers that cover the same use case independently of Anthropic and are listed separately in the catalog as a standalone MCP server.

How the chat channel works

After setting up a dedicated bot through Telegram's official @BotFather and installing the plugin, Claude Code starts the MCP server through the Bun JavaScript runtime. Per the source code, three tools are exposed: reply, for sending messages and files up to 50 MB to a chat; react, for adding an emoji reaction from Telegram's fixed emoji list; and edit_message, for revising a message already sent. While Claude processes a request, the bot shows a typing indicator; incoming photos are automatically saved to the local ~/.claude/channels/telegram/inbox/ folder. The plugin deliberately does not offer a searchable message history, per its documentation.

Access control: pairing, allowlists, and groups

Security is an explicit part of the feature set rather than an afterthought. In the default "pairing" mode, an unknown sender receives a six-digit code on first contact and no reply; only after confirming it via /telegram:access pair in the running Claude Code terminal does the user get access. Alternatively, a fixed allowlist can be maintained with /telegram:access allow and /telegram:access remove, where unauthorized messages are silently dropped, or the channel can be locked entirely via the "disabled" policy. Groups are disabled by default and must be enabled individually with /telegram:access group add; there, the bot by default only responds to @-mentions or direct replies, extendable with custom regex patterns via mentionPatterns. The entire configuration lives locally in ~/.claude/channels/telegram/access.json and is re-read on every incoming message.

Installation and requirements

Installation goes through Claude Code's built-in plugin marketplace with /plugin install telegram@claude-plugins-official, followed by /telegram:configure with the bot token generated at @BotFather and starting a channel process via claude --channels plugin:telegram@claude-plugins-official. Per the plugin's package.json, the Bun JavaScript runtime is a prerequisite and can be added with a one-line install script if missing. The plugin's source code and license file are released under the Apache-2.0 license; neither the repository nor the marketplace page states a separate price for the plugin itself, and it is usable as a free part of a Claude Code installation.

Who should use it

The plugin is a good fit for anyone who doesn't want to keep a terminal permanently attached to Claude Code but would rather send quick status checks, approvals, or follow-up instructions from Telegram — say, while a code change, a deployment, or a longer agent run is in progress and they're away from their desk. Because a Telegram-connected coding agent can potentially do a lot, choosing the access policy deliberately matters: pairing is usually enough for purely personal use, while team setups with multiple participants are better served by a maintained allowlist and tightly scoped groups. Anyone who instead needs general Telegram access independent of Claude Code, for other applications, will find the separately listed Telegram MCP server in the catalog as an alternative.

/plugin install telegram@claude-plugins-official