Telegram alerts

Telegram alerts run through a bot you own, so messages come from your bot, under your control, with nothing shared beyond your own chat. Setup takes about two minutes.

1. 01

   Create a bot

   Open a chat with @BotFather in Telegram, send /newbot, and follow the prompts. BotFather replies with a bot token like 123456789:AAF3xw...; keep it private.

2. 02

   Start the conversation

   Bots cannot message anyone first. For a personal chat, open your new bot and press Start. For a group, add the bot as a member and send any message. For a channel, add the bot as an administrator.

3. 03

   Find the chat ID

   Open the URL below in a browser (with your token filled in) after sending a message, and read the "chat":{"id":...} value. Personal chats are positive numbers, groups are negative, and public channels can use their @name directly. Careful: the number at the start of the bot token is the bot's own ID, not your chat ID; a bot cannot message itself.

4. 04

   Connect the monitor

   In the monitor's Settings under Alerts, switch on Telegram, paste the bot token and chat ID, and pick the events to forward. Save, and the next alert lands in Telegram.

https://api.telegram.org/bot<your-token>/getUpdates

• Messages include the status, detail, and a link back to the monitor.
• The bot token is only visible to people who can manage monitors; viewers never see it.
• One bot can serve many monitors, and different monitors can target different chats, for example critical ones to an on-call group.