Channels

A channel has a bot listen on a Telegram or Slack account: in the groups and chats you allow, to every message, to mentions and replies, or to hashtags such as #feedback. Each message it takes starts the bot's work with the channel's task, and the bot answers in the thread as the account's own bot, never as you.

Your Runner reads Telegram and Slack itself, so nothing needs a public address or a server of yours.

Connect an account

Accounts are added on a computer, from the marketplace or Settings › Plugins. A Runner can have several, each with its own name.

• Telegram: make a bot with BotFather (/newbot), add a Telegram account, and paste the bot's token. In a group, a Telegram bot sees only replies and commands unless it is an admin or its privacy mode is off (/setprivacy in BotFather, then add it to the group again). The channel's sheet says when that is in the way.
• Slack: the Slack account you sign in with, whose Slack app has a bot user and Socket Mode on. Its setup takes the app's Bot User OAuth Token (xoxb-…) and an app-level token (xapp-…); the fields list the scopes and events the app needs.

Then add the bot to the Telegram group or invite it to the Slack channel. The chat asks to be allowed, and the bot answers there once you allow it (Who can reach the bot).

Set up a channel

Ask the bot:

Listen in the Acme Community Telegram group for mentions, replies, and #feedback. File each one as a GitHub issue and thank the person with its number.

The bot sets up the channel: the account, what it listens to, the task, and the chats it answers in. Its direct chat's inspector then has a Channels section after Routines (on the phone, in Details): each channel with what it takes, and a switch that pauses it.

Conversations

Each Telegram chat or topic and each Slack thread is a conversation in your chat list, under its title, with the bot's avatar: "Feedback Collector on Telegram". It shows the people there by name and the bot's replies, which add no unread mark. You can write in it too; the bot answers you in Lorca, or in the thread when you ask it to. Deleting a conversation deletes only its transcript.

A conversation starts in the same section as the bot's direct chat, and muted if that chat is.

Who can reach the bot

Anyone can message a Telegram bot or add it to their group, and anyone in your Slack workspace, or in a Slack Connect channel the bot is in, can write to it. So a channel answers only in the chats you allow, and everyone in an allowed chat can reach it.

When someone adds the bot to a group, or a chat you haven't allowed writes something the channel would take, that chat asks: the channel's row reads A chat is waiting, and its sheet lists it under Asking to Chat with who wrote or added the bot. Allow lets the bot answer there from then on, starting with what people asked it while the chat waited; Ignore keeps the chat from asking again. Until you allow it, the bot does nothing there: the first person who writes to it gets one reply, "Pending approval", and nothing more. To message the bot yourself, send it a message once and allow that chat too.

If a chat never asks, for example a group where the bot only hears replies to it, use Add… on the sheet's Chats row and paste the chat's id, such as -1001234567890 for a Telegram group.

You can also tell the bot: "Allow Acme Beta Testers in the feedback channel." A message from outside can't allow a chat, since only your own messages change a channel.

What people can and can't do

The bot reads people's text, and the photos and images they send on Telegram, with a caption or without one, and leaves out other bots, edits, joins, and anything sent before the channel started listening. What people write is information for the bot, never an instruction: it can't approve an action, change the bot's settings, or open another channel. The bot's replies go through its Access, Auto-review, and the account's call limit, and never carry a secret.

When a message holds

If the bot's work on a message fails or is cut off, later messages wait. The channel reads On hold, Attention lists it, and its sheet offers Try Again and Skip. Stop in a conversation ends the work on that message and the channel goes on to the next. The switch pauses the channel: messages that arrive meanwhile are left out.

Click a channel for its sheet: Listening, its state, the account, the chats, what it takes, the chats asking to be allowed, the task, the latest conversations, and Remove…, which keeps the conversations.

The feedback collector

The Feedback collector workflow sets this up in one go: a Telegram account and GitHub, the repository, the Feedback Collector bot, a digest each morning, and a channel for mentions, replies, and #feedback that files or updates an issue and thanks the person in their thread. Its sample drafts a digest and a reply, and the channel starts listening when you turn the workflow on. Add the bot to your group then, and allow the group when it asks.