Telegram MCP Server

Telegram Context MCP

Read Telegram through your own account from an MCP client. Find permitted conversations, search and read original posts, navigate topics and replies, and inspect albums, reactions, and polls. Connect several local clients to one session-owning process, or run standalone STDIO.

Supports Windows, macOS, and Linux with Python 3.12–3.15. The server uses Telethon and preserves original text, dates, links, entities, and available metadata. It does not send messages, join channels, or mark messages read. Version 0.4 adds opt-in selected attachment downloads, durable change checkpoints, named subscriptions, and JSONL/Markdown exports with optional permanent copies. Subscriptions poll only when requested and retain a batch until acknowledged. It also bounds scope previews, returns restricted search results earlier, reuses dialog snapshots and accepts concurrent calls. See the 0.4 migration guide before upgrading from 0.3.

Version 0.5 adds bounded history across chats or folders, watch batches saved before acknowledgement, and watch_digest / period_digest prompts with local watch-name completion. When upgrading, restart the server and client proxies and refresh tools and prompts. The 0.5 changelog describes the additive changes and archive setup. Version 0.5.1 is a security patch: Telegram's service-notification chat, which delivers login codes, is never readable, even with all-chat or folder access. Upgrade every installation.

Version 0.6 adds optional PDF/DOCX text extraction with bounded continuation and source references, terminal QR login, a Claude Desktop MCPB bundle, and an optional Agent Skill. For document extraction, install 'telegram-context-mcp[extraction]==0.6.0' in the session-owning server and enable attachment downloads. See the usage guide for limits and platform coverage.

Install and log in

Install uv, then run:

uv tool install --python 3.12 telegram-context-mcp==0.6.0
telegram-mcp --version
telegram-mcp login
telegram-mcp configure
telegram-mcp status

These examples target release 0.6.0; check PyPI for published versions. Use the source setup for unreleased revisions. Upgrading from 0.3? Read the migration guide, then restart the server and refresh your client's tool schemas.

Obtain api_id and api_hash from my.telegram.org, then enter them in the local login prompt with your phone number, login code, and any 2FA password. Do not send login codes or credentials to the model.

Version 0.6 also supports telegram-mcp login --qr: scan the terminal QR from Telegram on your phone instead of entering a phone number and login code. See the QR login guide.

configure lets you choose folders/chats and separately enable all-chat access, explicit public-channel reads, or public-channel discovery. Enter keeps the current value. By default, no message sources are permitted. status should report authorized: true after login. Use catalog to find folder and chat IDs locally.

The package name is telegram-context-mcp; the executable is telegram-mcp. You can also run a pinned version without installing a persistent command:

uvx --python 3.12 --from telegram-context-mcp==0.6.0 telegram-mcp --version

The server is listed in the official MCP Registry as io.github.egor-fedorov/telegram-mcp. The entry launches a local STDIO server through uvx; it does not supply a hosted Telegram service. Complete login and configure locally before connecting a client. Registry publication starts with version 0.5.0. See the release procedure for verification and the client guide for sharing one session between clients.

Connect your clients

Start one server in a terminal and leave it running:

telegram-mcp serve --transport http

On Linux with systemd, the optional user-service setup starts that server at login and keeps it running independently of a terminal.

It listens only on http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp. Configure each MCP client to launch telegram-mcp connect over STDIO. This small proxy reads the local token and connects to the existing server; it does not start a server or silently fall back to another Telegram session. Closing a client leaves the shared server running.

Client examples cover Codex, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and VS Code, including a pinned uvx command and executable paths for Windows.

A Claude Desktop MCPB bundle is available in the 0.6.0 release. It uses the same shared server and separate local login; see the guide for installation and current validation coverage.

For one client, standalone STDIO is still available: configure that client to launch telegram-mcp serve. Use either mode for a given session. Stop the session-owning process before running local login, configure, catalog, or status; use the get_status MCP tool while the server is running.

All shared clients use the same Telegram account, read permissions, and cursor store. The HTTP bearer token is created in the local user profile and read by connect; do not paste it into client configuration. This is a local, single-user integration.

Tools

Two prompts package these tools for monitoring: watch_digest turns a named watch into a source-linked digest, saving each batch before acknowledging it; period_digest reads one chat or folder over a fixed period with explicit budgets. They do not add permissions. See monitoring prompts.

An optional Agent Skill guides tool selection, bounded reading, watch acknowledgements and selected attachments. Install it in your client separately from the server; see the skill setup.

First tasks

• Ask the client to list the folders you permitted and read a selected conversation over a timezone-qualified date range.
• Enable discovery to find candidate public channels, select a source, then read its posts with a separate read permission.
• Follow next_cursor with the original filters until it is null. An empty page can still have a cursor. Respect retry_after_seconds after a temporary failure.
• For CATALOG_LOADING, repeat the original call after the reported delay. The server retains catalog progress; explicit reads independent of folders skip that scan.
• Search sorts within each page by default. Select ordering="global" for order across pages. Scope ID arrays preview at most 20 IDs; use their counts and truncation flags when describing coverage.
• Use get_messages with next_text_offset to finish long text. Album completeness is explicitly unknown; each member remains a separate source message.

Usage and response contracts explain filters, cursor recovery, topics, public-channel discovery, and message metadata. See changes and exports for durable monitoring and selected files. Message text is data for the calling agent, not an instruction source.

Configuration and troubleshooting

Configuration, Telegram sessions, and the HTTP token live outside the repository in platform-specific user directories. The login command prints the configuration path. Use telegram-mcp --config /absolute/private/config.toml COMMAND to select another file; pass the same file to the shared server and each proxy.

On POSIX, private files use restrictive permissions. On Windows, protect them with user-profile filesystem ACLs; Unix 0600 is not an ACL guarantee. A Telegram session contains account access credentials, and the underlying account can do more than the server's Telegram read permissions allow.

• Configuration and permissions
• Troubleshooting
• Example TOML
• Security reporting

Run from source

git clone https://github.com/egor-fedorov/telegram-mcp.git
cd telegram-mcp
uv sync --locked --python 3.12
uv run --locked telegram-mcp login
uv run --locked telegram-mcp configure
uv run --locked telegram-mcp serve --transport http

For client commands, use the checkout's .venv/bin/telegram-mcp on POSIX or .venv\Scripts\telegram-mcp.exe on Windows, with connect as the argument. Use an absolute executable path so clients do not depend on their working directory.

Development

Run make check for formatting, lint, types, architecture checks, and offline tests. Contributing includes equivalent commands for Windows without Make. Changes use focused pull requests and squash merges after CI. See the roadmap, architecture, changelog, and release procedure. The 0.5 validation record reports release checks and the scope of selected-source and client validation; the 0.5.1 record covers the security patch. The 0.6 validation record tracks document extraction, packaging and publication.

The code is MIT licensed. This does not grant rights to Telegram content. Secret chats are unsupported; attachment downloads require a separate opt-in. Permanent copies require an archive directory and save=true; sending messages, administration and continuous archiving remain future work. Use source material you are entitled to share with your chosen model and follow Telegram's content terms.