telegram.md

Telegram Setup

Telegram bot for alerts from ArgoCD and Alertmanager.

Official Docs: https://core.telegram.org/bots

1. Create Bot

1. Open Telegram, find @BotFather
2. Send /newbot
3. Enter bot name (e.g., MyProject Alerts)
4. Enter username (e.g., myproject_alerts_bot)
5. Save the token → TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN for Doppler

2. Create Group with Topics

1. Create new group (e.g., MyProject Alerts)
2. Go to group settings → Topics → Enable
3. Create topics:
   • Critical — critical alerts
   • Warning — warnings
   • Info — informational
   • Deploys — deployment notifications

3. Add Bot to Group

1. Open group → Add members → Search your bot
2. Make bot admin (required for posting to topics)

4. Get Chat ID and Topic IDs

1. Send any message to each topic
2. Open in browser:

   https://api.telegram.org/bot<TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN>/getUpdates
   

3. Find in response:
   • chat.id → Chat ID (negative number like -100XXXXXXXXXX)
   • message_thread_id for each topic → topic IDs

Example response:

{
  "message": {
    "chat": {"id": -1001234567890},
    "message_thread_id": 2,
    "text": "test"
  }
}

5. Add to Doppler

Add to shared config:

Key	Value
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN	Bot token from BotFather

6. Update values.yaml

global:
  telegram:
    chatId: "-1001234567890"
    topics:
      critical: "2"
      warning: "3"
      info: "4"
      deploys: "5"

Verification

After deployment, trigger a test alert:

# Check ArgoCD notifications
kubectl logs -n argocd -l app.kubernetes.io/name=argocd-notifications-controller

# Manual test (from argocd-notifications)
argocd admin notifications trigger telegram-alerts --resource app:argocd/apps

Troubleshooting

Bot not posting

1. Check bot is admin in the group
2. Check TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN in Doppler
3. Check chat ID is correct (negative number)

Wrong topic

1. Verify message_thread_id matches topic
2. Send test message to topic and check /getUpdates again