Adding Telegram Topics Support to Clawdbot
Contributing forum/topics support to Clawdbot so my AI assistant can actually track different conversations in group chats
Clawdbot already had solid Telegram support - I could chat with Will via DM, he could participate in group chats, the basics all worked. But there was one missing piece: Telegram topics/forums.
If you haven’t used Telegram topics, think of them like Discord channels within a single chat. You can have one group with multiple topic threads - “General”, “Tech Talk”, “Random”, whatever. Each topic is its own conversation.
The problem? Will couldn’t tell them apart. A message in “General” and a message in “Tech Talk” looked the same to him. Context got mixed up, replies went to the wrong threads.
So I fixed it.
The PR
Pull Request #334 - Add Telegram topics/forum support
The changes were pretty straightforward:
1. Extract the thread ID
const threadId = msg.message_thread_id ? String(msg.message_thread_id) : undefined;Telegram sends message_thread_id with every message in a forum. Just needed to grab it.
2. Pass it through the message envelope Added thread context to the envelope that gets sent to the AI:
thread: threadId,Now Will knows which topic a message came from.
3. Include it in replies Every outgoing message type (text, photos, videos, documents) needed the thread ID:
message_thread_id: messageThreadId,This ensures replies go to the correct topic thread.
4. Make it available to templates
Added ThreadId and ThreadName to the template context so auto-replies and custom handlers can access thread info.
Why It Matters
Now I can:
- Have different conversations with Will in separate topics
- Keep work stuff in one thread, personal in another
- Context doesn’t bleed between topics
- Replies always go to the right place
It’s a small feature, but it makes group chats actually usable. Before this, using Will in a Telegram group with topics was basically broken. Now it just works.
The Testing
Added proper tests to make sure:
- Thread IDs are extracted correctly
- Replies target the right thread
- Template context includes thread info
- It doesn’t break non-topic chats
Pull request included formatting fixes (biome linter) and merged cleanly with upstream.
Contributing to Open Source
This is exactly the kind of PR I like making - scratched my own itch, added value to the project, clean implementation, tested.
Clawdbot’s architecture made it easy. The message handling was already well-structured, just needed to thread (pun intended) the topic ID through the pipeline.
What’s Next
With topics working properly, I can:
- Organize different aspects of life in separate Telegram topics
- Have Will participate naturally in each one
- Keep everything in one group instead of multiple chats
Small change, big impact on daily usability.
Built this because I needed it. Shared it because someone else probably does too.
