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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.tallwatch.com/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Tallwatch sends a plain-text message to Telegram using the Bot API. Telegram has no one-click webhook, so setup takes about five minutes: you create a bot, copy its token, and tell Tallwatch which chat to post to. You’ll need a Telegram account and the chat (group, channel, or DM) that should receive alerts.

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1. Create a bot with BotFather

1

Open BotFather

Search for @BotFather in Telegram and start a chat. It’s the official bot for managing bots.
2

Create the bot

Send /newbot and follow the prompts. Pick a name (Tallwatch alerts) and a username ending in bot (tallwatch_alerts_bot). The username has to be unique across Telegram.
3

Save the token

BotFather replies with a token like 123456789:AAEfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. Keep it somewhere safe.
The bot token is a credential. Anyone who has it can post as the bot to any chat it has joined. If it leaks, run BotFather’s /revoke to issue a new token, then update Tallwatch.

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2. Add the bot to the chat and find the chat ID

Telegram doesn’t show chat IDs in its client, so you add the bot first, then read the ID from the API.
1

Add the bot

In a group, open the group name and Add member, search for your bot’s username, and add it. For a channel, add the bot as an admin so it can post. For a DM, open the bot and press Start.
2

Post a message

Send any message in the chat. This guarantees the bot’s update log has a recent entry to read.
3

Read the chat ID

Open https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/getUpdates in your browser, replacing <TOKEN> with the bot token. Find chat.id in the JSON. It’s negative for groups and channels (-1001234567890) and positive for DMs.
If getUpdates returns an empty array, the bot hasn’t seen any messages. Post another one in the chat and retry.

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3. Add the channel in Tallwatch

1

Open the channels page

Go to Settings → Alerts → Channels and click Add channel.
2

Pick Telegram

Choose the Telegram kind and name it for the audience, like Telegram on-call.
3

Paste the token and chat ID, then test

Put the BotFather token in Bot token and the getUpdates ID in Chat ID. Click Save, then Send test alert. The message should arrive within a few seconds.

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What the alert looks like

A plain-text message:
  • The incident status and monitor name
  • The failing regions on their own line
  • The check error class and duration
  • A clickable link back to the incident
There are no rich cards in v1; Telegram renders it with its standard formatting.

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Troubleshooting

Someone removed the bot. Re-add it (as admin for a channel), post a message so getUpdates works again, and retry the test.
The chat ID is wrong or the bot was never added. Post a fresh message in the target chat, re-run getUpdates, and copy the correct ID.
The token is invalid, usually because it was revoked in BotFather or copied with stray whitespace. Re-issue with /revoke and update Tallwatch.
Telegram keeps only the last 24 hours of updates, so old messages expire. Post a fresh one and retry.Also, another long-poll consumer (a second bot integration) may be reading and acknowledging updates before you. If getUpdates keeps coming back empty, that’s why. Add ?offset=-1 to read just the latest update without acknowledging it.

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Reference

PropertyValue
Channel kindtelegram
Required configbot_token, chat_id
DeliveryImmediate, no proactive rate limit; Telegram enforces its own
RetryUp to 3 inline attempts on 5xx, 429, network, or timeout, then failed
Outbound toapi.telegram.org