Summary

Surface Telegram's official web-based bot creation flow (the BotFather web app / Mini App at https://t.me/BotFather?startapp) next to the classic /newbot chat flow in the Telegram setup wizard and docs.

Problem to solve

Telegram bot onboarding in OpenClaw only describes the chat-command flow: DM @Botfather, run /newbot, copy the token. Telegram now ships an official web UI for creating and managing bots — the BotFather Mini App — which runs in every Telegram client including web.telegram.org (see https://core.telegram.org/bots/features, "Open the bot's settings in BotFather's MiniApp"). Users who prefer a GUI, or who are on Telegram Web where chatting with BotFather is clumsy, get no pointer to it from openclaw onboard telegram or from the docs quick-setup.

Proposed solution

• Add one help line to the Telegram token wizard help (getTelegramTokenHelpLines in extensions/telegram/src/setup-core.ts) pointing at the web app deep link, in all three wizard locales.
• Update the docs quick-setup step in docs/channels/telegram.md to present both flows (chat flow and web flow), and mention the web app as the GUI alternative for BotFather toggles like /setprivacy.

Both flows end the same way: the user pastes a bot token into OpenClaw. No config surface or runtime behavior changes.

Alternatives considered

Full auto-provisioning via Telegram managed bots (Bot API 9.6+, current 10.1): a manager bot with Bot Management Mode enabled can hand users a https://t.me/newbot/{manager_bot}/{suggested_username} deep link; Telegram shows a pre-filled creation screen, the manager bot receives a managed_bot update and fetches the token with getManagedBotToken — no copy-paste at all. Our pinned grammY (1.44.0 / @grammyjs/types) already types this surface (Update.managed_bot, getManagedBotToken, replaceManagedBotToken, KeyboardButtonRequestManagedBot).

This is intentionally out of scope here: it requires OpenClaw (or the operator) to own a long-lived manager bot, plus decisions about token custody and multi-account config shape — a product decision for a separate proposal. The chicken-and-egg remains for first-time setup (you need a first token to have a manager bot).

Impact

• Affected: everyone setting up the Telegram channel for the first time
• Severity: minor friction; token creation is the first hurdle of onboarding
• Frequency: every new bot setup
• Consequence: users unaware of the web UI fall back to chat commands even where that flow is awkward (Telegram Web)

Evidence/examples

• https://core.telegram.org/bots/features (BotFather MiniApp deep link, managed bots section)
• https://core.telegram.org/bots/api (Bot API 10.1: ManagedBotUpdated, getManagedBotToken)