A lot of Telegram issues happen because pairing, privacy mode, and group policy get mixed together. Keep the first DM flow clean, verify it, then extend the config to groups.
Quick answer
Create the bot token, add the Telegram channel, approve the DM pairing code, and confirm the IDs in logs before you set group policies.
Command line steps
1. Create the bot and add the token to OpenClaw
Use BotFather for the token and then attach it from the CLI.
BASH
$openclaw channels add --channel telegram --token "$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN"
2. Approve the first DM pairing request
Telegram DMs default to pairing, so you need to approve the first sender unless you choose an allowlist policy instead.
BASH
$openclaw pairing list telegram
openclaw pairing approve telegram <CODE>
3. Read IDs from logs before group setup
Logs give you the exact from.id and chat.id values you need for allowlists.
BASH
$openclaw logs --follow
curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/getUpdates"
What to check if it still fails
- If group messages do not arrive, disable Telegram privacy mode or make the bot an admin and re-add it to the group.
- If DMs pair correctly but groups still fail, configure
channels.telegram.groupsand the sender allowlist separately. - If you upgraded from an older setup,
openclaw doctor --fixcan normalize old Telegram allowlist shapes.