How-to guides → Telegram
Feed alerts, in Telegram.
Connect a Telegram bot to SlashFeed and get a message in your chat, group, or channel every time a feed you care about publishes something new. Five steps, about five minutes.
Step 1
Create a Telegram bot
In Telegram, search for
@BotFather (the official bot management account) and send /newbot. Pick a display name (e.g. "SlashFeed Alerts") and a username ending in bot. BotFather replies with the
bot token — a string like:
123456789:ABCdefGhIjKlmNoPQRsTUvwXyZ
Copy it and treat it like a password — anyone with the token can send messages as your bot.
The @BotFather chat in Telegram after sending /newbot: the bot name and username prompts, and BotFather's reply containing the HTTP API token (token partially blurred).
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Step 2
Find your chat ID
The chat ID tells the bot where to deliver. Open a private chat with your new bot, send it any message (e.g. /start), then open this URL in a browser, replacing
<TOKEN> with your bot token:
https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/getUpdates
In the JSON response, copy the number in message.chat.id.
A browser window showing the getUpdates JSON response, with the message.chat.id number highlighted or circled.
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/start@yourbot), and call getUpdates
— group IDs are negative numbers. For a public channel: make the bot an administrator; the chat ID is -100
followed by the channel's numeric ID.
Step 3
Add the channel in SlashFeed
Open Notification Channels
in the app and click + Telegram. Paste the bot token and the chat ID, give it a friendly label if you like, and save. The channel appears in your list with a telegram
badge.
SlashFeed's Notification Channels page with the + Telegram form open: label, bot token, and chat ID fields filled in (token blurred), Add channel button visible.
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Step 4
Send a test
Click the paper-plane icon next to the channel. SlashFeed sends a test message immediately and shows the result — if it fails, double-check the token and that you messaged the bot at least once (bots cannot start conversations).
Split view: the SlashFeed channel row with the green 'sent' badge next to the paper-plane button, and the Telegram chat showing the '✅ SlashFeed — Test Notification' message.
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Step 5
Attach a rule
A channel alone never fires — add a rule that binds it to a trigger: every new entry, a specific feed, or a whole category. From then on, each matching entry is delivered to Telegram in the background, with automatic retries.
SlashFeed's Add rule form: the Telegram channel selected in the channel dropdown and the trigger scope options (all entries / specific feed / specific category) visible.
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