Message your coordinator on Telegram

When an agent messages you, the Telegram bridge forwards it to your phone, and your reply goes back to that agent. Your coordinator is the agent you talk to, which starts the other agents, hands out work and reports back to you. You can also start a conversation from Telegram; it goes to the agent you choose, usually your coordinator. You do not need to be at your desk.

Before you start

• A Telegram account on your phone.
• Thrum is set up in your repository, with the daemon running and a coordinator agent. The quickstart covers this. The daemon is the background process Thrum runs on your machine.

What it looks like

This is an example chat in Telegram with your bot. Your coordinator’s wording will differ.

You:
  Is the login fix merged?

Coordinator:
  Not yet. It passed review and is waiting on the full test run. I will message you when it finishes.

(Later, in the same chat.)

Coordinator:
  The test run finished green and the login fix is merged.

You:
  Good. Start on the password reset next.

Coordinator:
  Starting. I will assign it to an implementer now.

(Later, an implementer messages you.)

impl_login:
  The password reset needs a new database column. OK to add it?

You (replying to that message):
  Yes, add it.

Your reply goes to impl_login, because you replied to its message. In Telegram, use the reply gesture on that message. If you just type a new message, it goes to your Target Agent instead; see How replies find the right agent.

Thrum’s web UI is the page you open in your browser to see your agents and their messages. On your computer, the same exchange appears in the web UI. My Inbox is your inbox in Thrum’s web UI. Open Your Inbox, then My Inbox, for messages your agents sent you. To check the bridge itself, open Settings in the sidebar. In the General tab, the Telegram Bridge section shows Running, Stopped or Error, plus a Messages received count.

How to use it

Use the web form below, or ask your coordinator in its terminal (after step 5).

1. Create a bot in Telegram. Open a chat with @BotFather, the Telegram account that makes bots. Send /newbot and follow the prompts. BotFather gives you a bot token, a long string that looks like 123456789:ABC.... Treat it like a password.

2. Connect the bot in the web UI. Open Settings, then General, then Telegram Bridge. Paste the token in Bot Token. Type your coordinator’s name in Target Agent, for example coordinator_main. The field already shows the @. If you do not know the name, ask your coordinator: What is your agent name? Select Save. The web form keeps the token out of your shell history and out of any chat with an agent.

3. Link your Telegram account. Under Link your Telegram account, select Start Pairing. Within 60 seconds, open a private chat with your bot in Telegram and send it any message. Thrum fills in your Telegram user ID for you. If pairing times out, select Start Pairing and try again. Thrum adds your account to the Allow List and ignores messages from any other account, without a reply.

4. Turn it on. Switch on Enable bridge and select Save. The status shows Running.

5. Check it worked. Send “Are you there?” to your bot from your phone. The agent you chose in Target Agent should answer in the same chat. If you do not get an answer, check that Target Agent is your coordinator’s exact name. If the status is not Running, see the tip below.

Or, in your coordinator’s terminal (the one you started it in), ask:

Set up the Telegram bridge.

Caution

When it asks for the bot token, paste it there. Never paste it into My Inbox or any other message.

The web form above is the cleaner route: the token is write-only there.

Without a browser, run thrum telegram configure in a terminal in your repository. It asks for the bot token, so the token stays out of your shell history.

How replies find the right agent

• A new message you start goes to the agent you chose in Target Agent, usually the coordinator.
• When you reply to a message from a specific agent, your reply goes to that agent. Use Telegram’s reply gesture on the message.
• Any local agent that sends a message addressed only to you reaches you on Telegram. A message to you and others is not forwarded. To get a ping when something finishes, ask your coordinator: Message me when the test run finishes. It goes to your inbox, and the bridge forwards it.

Tips

Note

Telegram carries your messages as readable text through its servers. Thrum adds no encryption of its own, and the bot is not a Telegram Secret Chat. Do not send passwords or keys through the bridge.

Tip

If an agent’s permission prompt is sent to you on Telegram, reply yes or no to approve or deny it. Answer permission prompts explains how they reach you.

Tip

If the Telegram Bridge section shows Stopped or Error, ask your coordinator to check the bridge and tell it what the section says.

Next steps

• Answer permission prompts: approve an agent’s request from anywhere.
• Message your agents: how your coordinator and its agents talk to each other.
• Keep context when an agent restarts: your coordinator remembers the thread after a restart.