Telegram

Talk to your sessions from your phone. Harness Maxxing includes its own Telegram gateway: no extra program to install.

• One bot, linked to your private chat only.
• One thread per open session - the Telegram chat mirrors the Sessions page - plus Crons (job reports), Alerts (sign-in alerts) and Notifications (the notifications feed: sales, orders, your scripts… per the rules you set, posted by the bot itself, with an Ask Harness button). A thread is named <project>/<topic> · <session title>, with the project's emoji in front when it has one (project … menu in Sessions -> Set an emoji…), e.g. 🛒 acme/blog · Launch plan. Changing the emoji renames the threads.
• A thread is the session itself: what you write on the phone appears in the web UI and you can continue there, and the other way round.
• Write in the main chat (or create a thread) to start a new session: the bot asks in which topic.

Setup (Settings -> Telegram)

1. In Telegram, open @BotFather, send /newbot, choose a name and a username ending in bot. Copy the token it gives you (123456789:AA...).
2. In BotFather, open your bot's settings and enable topics (threads) for private chats, so each open session gets its own thread. Without it everything works in the main chat (use /topic to choose which topic it talks to).
3. Paste the token in Settings -> Telegram. The server checks it.
4. Click Link, open the t.me/<bot>?start=<code> link on your phone and press Start. The code is valid 15 minutes. From then on, messages from any other chat are ignored.
5. Click Sync threads (afterwards it is automatic: see below).
6. Choose the options: cron reports, sign-in alerts, two-step sign-in, reply mode (live progress, the default = one status message updated while Claude works with its task list and each step, folded into a summary at the end; final answer = only the answer). Press Send test.

Threads = open sessions

Mirrored sessions: the ones you talk to (not those started by scheduled jobs - their reports go to Crons), not archived, active in the last 30 days (Settings -> Telegram -> Keep a thread for: 7, 14, 30 or 90 days), at most 50. An older session simply gets its thread back when it is used again. The sync runs a few seconds after any change and every 10 minutes; nothing to schedule. If Telegram refuses to delete a thread for a moment (too many requests, no connection), the next sync deletes it. Renaming a session renames its thread: Telegram shows a small "topic renamed" line in the thread.

Using it

• Write in a session's thread: Claude answers in that thread. While it works you see "typing…" and, for longer tasks, the live status message.
• Send photos and files: they are saved in <topic>/attachments/telegram/YYYY-MM/ and passed to Claude with your caption.
• Commands:

• The bell of a session (web UI, next to its title): with the mirror off (default) it posts a short "finished" message in the session's thread when a turn ends; with the mirror on it makes the mirrored answers ring.

Two-step sign-in

Settings -> Telegram (or Settings -> Security) -> Two-step sign-in: after the right password, a browser that is not trusted yet waits for your approval in Telegram. The Alerts thread gets a message with the IP, the browser, a 6-digit code and two buttons:

• Allow: the sign-in page opens by itself;
• Deny: the sign-in is refused - and since the right password was typed, change it (Settings -> Security).

When the buttons do not answer, type the code of the message on the sign-in page. A request expires after 2 minutes; 5 wrong codes cancel it, and after 20 wrong codes in an hour on the whole server codes are paused for the hour (the Allow button still works) - someone who knows the password cannot try codes from many addresses. A sign-in page opened again replaces its previous request. Trust this browser for 30 days (ticked by default) skips the second step on that browser; Forget trusted browsers makes every other browser ask again (changing the password does it too). Changing the password, forgetting browsers or turning two-step sign-in off also cancels every request still waiting, even one you allowed by mistake.

Turning it on sends a first request: it is only switched on once you approved it, so a bot that does not answer cannot lock you out. Unlinking Telegram turns it off.

Telegram does not answer (bot deleted, Telegram down, phone lost): on the server, over SSH,

maxxing 2fa off             # password only again (every trusted browser is forgotten)
maxxing 2fa status          # on / off

Troubleshooting

maxxing telegram status     # bot, chat, threads, settings, last error
maxxing telegram test       # sends a test message

To disconnect: Settings -> Telegram -> Unlink (forgets the token and the chat).