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Telegram MCP — setup on a new machine

Reproduces the working integration this project uses: read Oleg's Telegram channels/DMs as a user (MTProto, not a bot) through the chigwell/telegram-mcp server, registered in Claude Code + Claude Desktop.

Time: ~10 minutes. Most of it is one-time Telegram credentials.

0. Prereqs

git, curl, jq, node (for npx)
A clone of this repo (cv-2026) — it holds the .env shape and the CLAUDE.md safety policy that govern this integration.

1. Get Telegram API credentials (one-time per Telegram account)

Open https://my.telegram.org/apps and create a new application:

App title: anything (e.g. telegram-mcp)
Short name: 5–32 alphanumeric, e.g. tgmcp
URL: must not be empty — put https://t.me (form says optional but errors otherwise)
Platform: Desktop
Description: optional

You'll get api_id (number) and api_hash (32-char hex). Treat them like a password.

If you see a generic ERROR popup, fill in the URL field — that's the most common cause.

Save both into the project .env:

TELEGRAM_API_ID=<id>
TELEGRAM_API_HASH=<hash>
TELEGRAM_SESSION_STRING=

Confirm .env is in .gitignore.

2. Install the server (Python, isolated via `uv`)

The server is chigwell/telegram-mcp — a Telethon-based MCP server. Python lives inside its own uv-managed venv, nothing leaks into the project.

# install uv if missing (goes into ~/.local/bin, no sudo)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# clone + sync (creates .venv with locked deps)
mkdir -p /projects/my-utils && cd /projects/my-utils
git clone https://github.com/chigwell/telegram-mcp.git telegram
cd telegram
~/.local/bin/uv sync

Two binaries appear at /projects/my-utils/telegram/.venv/bin/:

telegram-mcp — the MCP server
telegram-mcp-generate-session — one-shot session-string generator

3. Generate the session string (one-time, interactive)

From the cv-2026 project root (where .env lives):

set -a && source .env && set +a && \
  /projects/my-utils/telegram/.venv/bin/telegram-mcp-generate-session

At the prompts:

Account label: leave empty (Enter). A label adds a _<LABEL> suffix to env var names and we don't need multi-account.
Login method: 1 (QR) is the fastest — scan from any device where Telegram is already open (Settings → Devices → Link Desktop Device).
- Alternative: 2 (phone). The code arrives inside Telegram as a message from the official Telegram account, not via SMS — check there first.

Output ends with a ~350-char string. Paste it into .env as TELEGRAM_SESSION_STRING=<value>.

4. Register in Claude Code + Claude Desktop

add-mcp writes the server entry into both client configs in one shot. Important gotcha: with --yes, add-mcp stores ${VAR} placeholders literally instead of resolving them — Claude Desktop won't expand env vars at runtime, so we resolve them manually with jq right after.

# from the cv-2026 project root
set -a && source .env && set +a && \
  npx -y add-mcp "/projects/my-utils/telegram/.venv/bin/telegram-mcp" \
    -n telegram \
    --env 'TELEGRAM_API_ID=${TELEGRAM_API_ID}' \
    --env 'TELEGRAM_API_HASH=${TELEGRAM_API_HASH}' \
    --env 'TELEGRAM_SESSION_STRING=${TELEGRAM_SESSION_STRING}' \
    -a claude-code -a claude-desktop \
    -g -y

# fix the literal-placeholder issue — substitute actual values into both configs
set -a && source .env && set +a && \
  for CFG in ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json ~/.claude.json; do
    jq --arg id "$TELEGRAM_API_ID" --arg hash "$TELEGRAM_API_HASH" --arg sess "$TELEGRAM_SESSION_STRING" \
      '.mcpServers.telegram.env.TELEGRAM_API_ID = $id
       | .mcpServers.telegram.env.TELEGRAM_API_HASH = $hash
       | .mcpServers.telegram.env.TELEGRAM_SESSION_STRING = $sess' \
      "$CFG" > "$CFG.tmp" && mv "$CFG.tmp" "$CFG"
  done

macOS Claude Desktop config path is ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json — adjust the loop.

5. Restart and verify

Claude Desktop: quit and reopen.
Claude Code: start a new session (this CLI loads MCP servers at session start).

In the new session, ask: "проверь доступ к телеграму". The agent should call mcp__telegram__get_me and return your handle.

If tools never appear, check the server starts cleanly:

set -a && source .env && set +a && /projects/my-utils/telegram/.venv/bin/telegram-mcp
# Ctrl+C after it prints startup logs — it's an stdio MCP server, this just smoke-tests it

6. Safety policy (already in CLAUDE.md, do not skip)

The server is write-capable — it can send/edit/delete messages on Oleg's behalf. Safety is enforced by CLAUDE.md (section "Telegram MCP — safety policy"), not by tool exposure, because read-only mode was too limiting. Two absolute rules:

Never destructive/irreversible actions, even on explicit request (delete messages/chats/folders, terminate sessions, change profile, bulk operations).
Writes (send/edit messages, join/leave, add to folder, etc.) need per-conversation permission for the specific target chat — except for chats listed in .claude/telegram-write-whitelist.md (currently empty).

Both files (CLAUDE.md section and the whitelist) live in this repo — cloning cv-2026 brings them with you.

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