Telegram Setup

Create a bot with BotFather

Open Telegram and search for @BotFather
Send /newbot
Choose a display name (e.g. “My Claude”)
Choose a username ending in bot (e.g. my_claude_bot)
Copy the bot token — it looks like 123456789:ABCdefGHIjklMNOpqrsTUVwxyz

Recommended bot settings

While you’re in BotFather, configure these optional settings:

/setprivacy — set to Disable if you want the bot to see all messages in group chats (required for group chat support without @mentions)
/setcommands — paste the following to register command autocompletion:

context - List or switch contexts
clear - Start a fresh session
status - Show current status
cancel - Abort running task
model - Show or change model
resume - List or resume sessions
review - Open the review Mini App
schedule - Manage scheduled tasks
tasks - List background tasks
usage - Show API usage stats
vnc - Open VNC viewer
login - Authenticate for Mini Apps
mcp - Manage MCP servers
restart - Restart the bot

Find your Telegram user ID

OpenShrimp only responds to users in the allowed_users list. To find your user ID:

Open Telegram and search for @userinfobot
Send any message
It replies with your numeric user ID (e.g. 123456789)

Add this number to your config file’s allowed_users list.

Next steps

Now configure the bot — see Configuration.