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tease.bot

Connect a new Telegram bot via BotFather

This recipe covers creating a brand-new Telegram bot for your persona. If you already have a bot you want to reuse, you can skip the BotFather steps and jump to Paste the token in tease.bot below.

What you need

  • A Telegram account
  • About 5 minutes
  • An idea for the bot’s username (must end in bot, must be unique on Telegram)

Steps

1. Open BotFather

Open Telegram. Search for @BotFather (with the verification checkmark). Open the chat. Type /start.

2. Create the bot

Send /newbot. BotFather asks for:

  1. A display name (what fans see). Use the same name as your persona.
  2. A username (the @handle). It must end in bot. For example, lovely_persona_bot or personadm_bot. Telegram tells you immediately if the handle is taken.

Once both are accepted, BotFather sends you a long token that looks like 1234567890:ABCdef.... Copy it. Treat it like a password. Anyone with this token controls the bot.

Still in the BotFather chat:

  • Send /setdescription, pick your bot, paste a one-line description fans see when they open the bot for the first time.
  • Send /setabouttext, pick your bot, paste a short bio (visible on the bot’s profile page).
  • Send /setuserpic, pick your bot, upload a square profile picture.
  • Send /setjoingroups, pick your bot, choose Disable. The persona is for private chats, not groups.
  • Send /setprivacy, pick your bot, choose Disable. This lets your persona see all messages in any chat, which is what you want.

You can do all of these later. The first launch only needs the token.

4. Paste the token in tease.bot

In your tease.bot dashboard, go to Bot Setup (or the Telegram link screen of the onboarding wizard if this is your first time). Paste the BotFather token.

The dashboard verifies the token in real time. A green check means tease.bot can talk to your bot. A red error means the token is wrong (most often a copy-paste with an extra space) or the bot has been deleted in BotFather.

5. Test the connection

In the Bot Setup page, click Send test message. Open your bot in Telegram (search for the @handle BotFather gave you). Click Start. The first welcome message should arrive within a few seconds.

If nothing arrives:

  • Re-check the token in tease.bot Settings.
  • In BotFather, send /mybots, pick your bot, click API token, and copy a fresh one.
  • If the bot still does not respond, contact support with the bot’s @handle.

6. Optional: switch to Business Mode

Most creators want their persona to reply in private DMs on their behalf, not just inside the bot’s own chat. The setting that enables this is called Business Mode and it lives in your personal Telegram settings, not in BotFather. See Switch your bot to Business Mode.

You are now connected. Your persona starts replying as soon as the first fan messages the bot.