telechat

Claude AI on your phone/desktop — personal, self-hosted messenger bot for Telegram, WhatsApp, and Slack.

Quick Start

npm install -g telechat && telechat init

This installs telechat globally and launches the AI-guided setup wizard. After setup, start the bot with telechat start.

You can also run without installing:

npx telechat

First run automatically installs dependencies, checks your environment, and runs the setup wizard. After that, it starts the bot as a background service.

Requirements

• Node.js 16+ (for the CLI)
• Python 3.9+ (auto-detected)
• Claude CLI (optional, for free CLI mode — npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code)

Commands

telechat                # Start bot as background service
telechat stop           # Stop the bot
telechat restart        # Restart the bot
telechat status         # Check if running
telechat logs           # Tail the bot log
telechat env            # Show environment variables (tokens masked)
telechat env clean      # Remove .env file (clear all credentials)
telechat clean          # Same as env clean
telechat init           # AI-guided setup using Claude CLI
telechat setup          # Manual setup wizard
telechat update         # Update to latest version
telechat --debug        # Start with verbose logging
telechat --version      # Show version
telechat --help         # Show all commands

Setup Options

telechat init (Recommended)

AI-guided setup powered by Claude CLI. Opens the right pages in your browser, walks you through each platform step by step, validates credentials, and writes .env automatically.

• Detects already-configured platforms and asks to keep or reconfigure
• Opens Telegram Web for QR login, then navigates to @BotFather and @userinfobot
• Opens Green API console for WhatsApp credentials
• Opens Slack API console with detailed setup instructions
• Validates every token via API before saving

Requires Claude CLI: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code && claude auth login

telechat setup

Manual setup wizard with step-by-step prompts. Works without Claude CLI.

How It Works

• Bot runs as a background service — survives terminal close and Ctrl+C
• Manage with telechat start/stop/restart/status
• Logs go to bot.log — view with telechat logs
• Config stored in .env — view with telechat env, edit and telechat restart
• Conversation history stored in bot.db (SQLite)

Python Users

pip install telechatai
python -m telechat_pkg.main

Documentation

Full docs: https://github.com/telechatai/telechat

License

MIT