How to Create a Telegram Bot Token with BotFather

Overview

Telegram bots are special accounts that run without a phone number. They are created and managed through BotFather, which is Telegram's official bot for registering new bots and managing existing ones.

When you create a bot through BotFather, you receive a bot token. This token is a long string that acts as your bot's authentication key. BetterClaw uses this token to send and receive messages on your bot's behalf.

The entire process takes about 2 minutes.

Prerequisites

• A Telegram account (requires a phone number for initial registration)
• Telegram app installed on your phone, desktop, or access via web.telegram.org

Step 1: Open BotFather

Open Telegram and search for @BotFather in the search bar at the top.

Click on BotFather to open the chat. If this is your first time, click Start or type /start to begin. BotFather will respond with a list of available commands.

Step 2: Create a New Bot

Type or tap /newbot and send the message. BotFather will ask you two questions, one at a time.

Choose a Display Name

First, BotFather asks: "Alright, a new bot. How are we going to call it? Please choose a name for your bot."

This is the display name that users will see in their chat list and at the top of the conversation. It can be anything you want. For example: "My Assistant", "Support Bot", or "Acme AI Agent".

Type your chosen name and send it.

Choose a Username

Next, BotFather asks: "Good. Now let's choose a username for your bot. It must end in 'bot'. Like this, for example: TetrisBot or tetris_bot."

The username is the unique handle for your bot. It must end with "bot" (case-insensitive). For example: "acme_support_bot" or "MyAssistantBot". If the username is already taken, BotFather will ask you to try another one.

Type your chosen username and send it.

Fixing "Username Must End in Bot" in BotFather

If BotFather answers your username with "Sorry, this username is invalid." or repeats "It must end in 'bot'.", you have hit Telegram's naming rule. Every bot username must end with bot or _bot. This is enforced by Telegram and there is no way around it.

The most common source of confusion: this rule applies to the username (the @handle that forms your t.me/ link), not the display name BotFather asked for in the previous step. Your display name can be anything — "Acme Support", "Nova", a single emoji. Only the username is constrained.

The rest of the username rules, which trip people up right after they fix the "bot" suffix:

• 5 to 32 characters long
• Latin letters, digits, and underscores only — no spaces, hyphens, or dots
• Case-insensitive, so MyBot and mybot are the same name to Telegram
• Globally unique across all of Telegram, so short generic names are almost always taken

If the name is rejected as taken rather than invalid, see Troubleshooting below.

Step 3: Copy Your Bot Token

Once you provide a valid username, BotFather responds with a success message that includes your bot token. The message will say something like:

Done! Congratulations on your new bot. You will find it at t.me/your_bot_username.

Use this token to access the HTTP API:
123456789:ABCDefgh-IJKLmnopQRSTuvwxyz1234567

Keep your token secure and store it safely.

The token is the long string that looks like 123456789:ABCDefgh-IJKLmnopQRSTuvwxyz1234567. It consists of two parts separated by a colon: a numeric bot ID and an alphanumeric authentication hash.

Copy the entire token, including the colon and everything after it. You will paste this into BetterClaw in the next step.

Step 4: Add the Token to BetterClaw

Now that you have your bot token, you need to store it in your BetterClaw workspace so your agent can use it.

1. Go to Secrets in the left sidebar of your BetterClaw workspace.
2. Click + Add secret.
3. Set Kind to "API key".
4. Set Display name to something recognizable, like "Telegram Bot Token".
5. Paste your bot token into the API key field.
6. Click Create.

Your Telegram bot token is now securely stored and encrypted. When you enable Telegram as a channel on your agent, BetterClaw will use this token to authenticate with the Telegram Bot API.

Optional: Customize Your Bot

Before connecting your bot to BetterClaw, you can optionally customize its appearance in Telegram. All of these commands are sent to BotFather.

Understanding the Token Format

A Telegram bot token always follows this format:

<bot_id>:<auth_hash>

• Bot ID: The numeric part before the colon. This is your bot's unique identifier on Telegram.
• Auth Hash: The alphanumeric string after the colon. This authenticates API requests.

When pasting the token into BetterClaw, always include both parts with the colon. A common mistake is accidentally cutting off the beginning or end of the token when copying.

How to Find Your Telegram Chat ID

The token identifies your bot. A chat ID identifies a conversation, and you need it whenever your code or a tool asks where to send messages (a chat_id parameter or a TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID variable). The reliable way to get it uses only your token and Telegram's own Bot API, so there is no need to hand your token to a third-party "chat ID" bot or website.

1. Open your bot in Telegram (t.me/your_bot_username), tap Start, and send it any message, such as "hi". Telegram only creates an update once someone messages the bot.
2. In a browser, open the URL below with your token in place of <TOKEN>. Keep the word bot directly in front of the token, with no space.
3. Find "chat":{"id": ...} inside message in the response. That number is your chat ID.

https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/getUpdates

{
  "ok": true,
  "result": [
    {
      "update_id": 815230001,
      "message": {
        "message_id": 1,
        "from": { "id": 123456789, "is_bot": false, "first_name": "Ana" },
        "chat": { "id": 123456789, "first_name": "Ana", "type": "private" },
        "date": 1792000000,
        "text": "hi"
      }
    }
  ]
}

The same request works from a terminal with curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/getUpdates". Treat the URL like the token itself: it contains the token, so do not paste it into a shared doc or screenshot.

Private chats, groups, and supergroups

• Private chat with you: a positive number. It is the same as your Telegram user ID, so the from.id and chat.id values match.
• Basic group: a negative number, such as -4512345678.
• Supergroup or channel: a negative number that typically starts with -100, such as -1001234567890. Copy the full value, minus sign and -100 prefix included.

To get a group's ID, add the bot to the group, post a message there, then load getUpdates again. If a basic group is later upgraded to a supergroup, its ID changes, so read it again after the upgrade.

getUpdates returns an empty result

• Nobody has messaged the bot yet, or it was too long ago. Telegram keeps pending updates for at most 24 hours. Send a fresh message and reload the URL.
• A webhook is set.getUpdates does not work while an outgoing webhook is configured, which is the case once the token is connected to an agent platform or server. Check with /getWebhookInfo. You can call /deleteWebhook to read updates manually, but that disconnects whatever was receiving them until the webhook is set again, so it is often easier to read the ID before connecting the bot.
• Group messages are missing. Bots in groups run in privacy mode by default and only see commands meant for them (such as /start@your_bot_username), replies to their own messages, and service messages. Send a command like that in the group, or make the bot an admin, since admin bots receive every message. You can also turn privacy mode off with /setprivacy in BotFather, but the bot then has to be removed and re-added to the group for the change to apply.

Token Security

Your bot token is a credential, not a configuration value. Anyone holding it can control your bot, read every message sent to it, and send messages as it. Telegram does not tie the token to an IP address or a device, so a leaked token works for whoever finds it until you revoke it.

• Do not commit it to a Git repo, public or private. Repo history outlives the file you deleted it from.
• Do not paste it into a Slack, Discord, or support channel, and do not include it in a screenshot.
• Store it in an environment variable or a secrets manager rather than plaintext config.
• Use a separate bot and token per environment. Telegram allows only one active connection per token, so sharing one between staging and production causes 409 Conflict errors as well as being a security problem.
• If you suspect it was exposed, revoke and regenerate immediately. Deleting the message or the commit does not invalidate the token.

On BetterClaw, bot tokens are encrypted at rest with AES-256 and auto-purge from agent memory after 5 minutes. On a self-hosted OpenClaw or Hermes setup, token storage and rotation are your responsibility.

What to Do With Your Bot Token: Connect It to an AI Agent

You have a token. Most guides stop here. If the reason you created this bot is to put an AI agent behind it, here is what the token actually plugs into on each of the three common platforms.

OpenClaw (self-hosted)

Add the token to your config at ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json under the Telegram channel:

{
  "channels": {
    "telegram": {
      "enabled": true,
      "botToken": "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN_FROM_BOTFATHER",
      "dmPolicy": "pairing"
    }
  }
}

You can set the token through the environment instead, using TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN for the default account. There is no channels login telegram command for Telegram — config or env is the supported path. Then start the gateway, click Start in your bot chat, and approve the pairing code from the terminal. The full walkthrough is in our OpenClaw Telegram setup guide.

Hermes Agent (self-hosted)

Hermes keeps credentials in ~/.hermes/.env and behaviour settings in ~/.hermes/config.yaml. Environment variables take precedence over the YAML.

# ~/.hermes/.env
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=your-bot-token-here
TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS=your-telegram-user-id

Then run hermes gateway run. As with the Discord gateway, an allowlist is required — without one the gateway denies every incoming message by default, which is a security-first default rather than a bug.

BetterClaw (managed)

No config file, no gateway to run, no pairing code to approve in a terminal. In your workspace, open Integrations in the left sidebar, find the Connect Telegram bot card, paste the token, pick which agent handles the conversation, and choose whether anyone can message the bot or only an allowlist of usernames. Click Connect and the card shows an Active badge.

Telegram is a Pro channel on BetterClaw, at $49/month. The free plan gives you one agent and 100 credits a month with BYOK, which is enough to build and test the agent itself, but the Telegram connection is not included. Full walkthrough: Integrate Telegram with BetterClaw.

How to Revoke a Leaked or Exposed Bot Token (.env, GitHub) and Regenerate It

Telegram has no "reset password" for bots. Revoking the token is the rotation mechanism: you cannot invalidate a leaked token without also being handed a replacement. The whole process happens in BotFather and takes under a minute.

1. Open your chat with @BotFather and send /revoke.
2. BotFather replies with a keyboard listing every bot you own. Tap the bot whose token you want to kill. If you only have one bot, it still asks you to confirm the selection.
3. BotFather immediately returns a new token. The old token stops working the moment the new one is issued, so there is no overlap window and no way to undo it.
4. Paste the new token back into your setup. In BetterClaw, that means Secrets → your Telegram Bot Token entry → update the API key value. Anywhere else the old token is stored (a .env file, a CI secret, a webhook config) has to be updated too or that integration will start failing.

Revoking a token does not delete your bot, its username, its chat history, or its subscribers. Only the authentication key changes. If you want to remove the bot entirely, use /deletebot instead.

To check your current token without revoking it, send /mybots, select the bot, and choose API Token.

Troubleshooting

BotFather says the username is taken

Telegram bot usernames must be globally unique. Try adding a prefix or suffix that is specific to your organization. For example, instead of "support_bot", try "acme_support_bot" or "support_bot_2026".

Token not working after pasting into BetterClaw

Make sure you copied the full token, including the colon. Check for extra spaces at the beginning or end. If the token still does not work, go back to BotFather and use /mybots to view your bot, then click "API Token" to see the current valid token.

Bot is not responding to messages

After storing the token in BetterClaw, make sure you have also enabled Telegram as a channel on your agent. The token alone does not activate the connection. You also need to open Telegram, find your bot by its username, and click Start to initiate the first conversation.

I accidentally shared my token

Revoke it immediately — see How to Revoke a Leaked or Exposed Bot Token above for the full /revoke flow and what to update afterwards.

I need multiple bots

You can create as many bots as you want through BotFather. Each bot gets its own token. In BetterClaw, store each token as a separate secret and assign them to different agents or channels.

Quick Reference

Frequently Asked Questions

What does BotFather "username must end in bot" mean?

Telegram requires every bot username to end in "bot" or "_bot", for example acme_support_bot or AcmeSupportBot. The rule applies to the username (the @handle), not the display name. Add "bot" to the end of the username and send it again.

How do I get a Telegram bot token?

Open a chat with @BotFather in Telegram and send /newbot. Choose a display name, then a username that ends in "bot". BotFather replies with your token, a string like 123456789:AAH... that has a numeric bot ID, a colon, and an auth hash. If you lose it later, send /mybots, pick the bot, and tap API Token.

Is there a Telegram bot token generator?

BotFather is the only generator. Telegram issues every bot token itself, so a third-party "token generator" website cannot create a working token. Never paste an existing token into one either, because anyone holding the token controls your bot.

How do I revoke a Telegram bot token?

Send /revoke to @BotFather and pick the bot. BotFather issues a new token right away and the old one stops working at the same moment. The bot, its username, and its chats are not affected. Update the token everywhere you stored it.

Is a Telegram bot token free?

Yes. Creating bots and tokens through BotFather is free, and you can create more than one bot from the same Telegram account.

Next Steps

Once your bot token is stored in BetterClaw, you can:

• Enable Telegram as a messaging channel on your agent
• Customize your bot's profile picture and description through BotFather
• Configure DM and group messaging policies
• Test by opening your bot in Telegram and sending a message

For the full Telegram channel configuration, see the Integrate Telegram with BetterClaw guide.