Red Hat Training

A Red Hat training course is available for Red Hat Fuse

Chapter 317. Telegram Component

Available as of Camel version 2.18

The Telegram component provides access to the Telegram Bot API. It allows a Camel-based application to send and receive messages by acting as a Bot, participating in direct conversations with normal users, private and public groups or channels.

A Telegram Bot must be created before using this component, following the instructions at the Telegram Bot developers home. When a new Bot is created, the BotFather provides an authorization token corresponding to the Bot. The authorization token is a mandatory parameter for the camel-telegram endpoint.


In order to allow the Bot to receive all messages exchanged within a group or channel (not just the ones starting with a '/' character), ask the BotFather to disable the privacy mode, using the /setprivacy command.



317.1. URI format



317.2. Options

The Telegram component supports 2 options which are listed below.


authorizationToken (security)

The default Telegram authorization token to be used when the information is not provided in the endpoints.



resolveProperty Placeholders (advanced)




The Telegram endpoint is configured using URI syntax:


with the following path and query parameters:

317.2.1. Path Parameters (2 parameters):



Required The endpoint type. Currently, only the 'bots' type is supported.




Required The authorization token for using the bot (ask the BotFather), eg. 654321531:HGF_dTra456323dHuOedsE343211fqr3t-H.



317.2.2. Query Parameters (22 parameters):


bridgeErrorHandler (consumer)




limit (consumer)

Limit on the number of updates that can be received in a single polling request.



sendEmptyMessageWhenIdle (consumer)




timeout (consumer)

Timeout in seconds for long polling. Put 0 for short polling or a bigger number for long polling. Long polling produces shorter response time.



exceptionHandler (consumer)




exchangePattern (consumer)

Sets the exchange pattern when the consumer creates an exchange.



pollStrategy (consumer)



PollingConsumerPoll Strategy

chatId (producer)

The identifier of the chat that will receive the produced messages. Chat ids can be first obtained from incoming messages (eg. when a telegram user starts a conversation with a bot, its client sends automatically a '/start' message containing the chat id). It is an optional parameter, as the chat id can be set dynamically for each outgoing message (using body or headers).



synchronous (advanced)




backoffErrorThreshold (scheduler)




backoffIdleThreshold (scheduler)




backoffMultiplier (scheduler)




delay (scheduler)




greedy (scheduler)




initialDelay (scheduler)




runLoggingLevel (scheduler)




scheduledExecutorService (scheduler)



ScheduledExecutor Service

scheduler (scheduler)



ScheduledPollConsumer Scheduler

schedulerProperties (scheduler)




startScheduler (scheduler)

Whether the scheduler should be auto started.



timeUnit (scheduler)

Time unit for initialDelay and delay options.



useFixedDelay (scheduler)




317.3. Message Headers



This header is used by the producer endpoint in order to resolve the chat id that will receive the message. The recipient chat id can be placed (in order of priority) in message body, in the CamelTelegramChatId header or in the endpoint configuration (chatId option). This header is also present in all incoming messages.


This header is used to identify the media type when the outgoing message is composed of pure binary data. Possible values are strings or enum values belonging to the org.apache.camel.component.telegram.TelegramMediaType enumeration.


This header is used to provide a caption or title for outgoing binary messages.


This header is used to format text messages using HTML or Markdown (see org.apache.camel.component.telegram.TelegramParseMode).

317.4. Usage

The Telegram component supports both consumer and producer endpoints. It can also be used in reactive chat-bot mode (to consume, then produce messages).

317.5. Producer Example

The following is a basic example of how to send a message to a Telegram chat through the Telegram Bot API.

in Java DSL


or in Spring XML

    <from uri="direct:start"/>
    <to uri="telegram:bots/123456789:insertAuthorizationTokenHere"/>

The code 123456789:insertAuthorizationTokenHere is the authorization token corresponding to the Bot.

When using the producer endpoint without specifying the chat id option, the target chat will be identified using information contained in the body or headers of the message. The following message bodies are allowed for a producer endpoint (messages of type OutgoingXXXMessage belong to the package org.apache.camel.component.telegram.model)

Java TypeDescription


To send a text message to a chat


To send a photo (JPG, PNG) to a chat


To send a mp3 audio to a chat


To send a mp4 video to a chat


To send a file to a chat (any media type)


To send any media type supported. It requires the CamelTelegramMediaType header to be set to the appropriate media type


To send a text message to a chat. It gets converted automatically into a OutgoingTextMessage

317.6. Consumer Example

The following is a basic example of how to receive all messages that telegram users are sending to the configured Bot. In Java DSL


or in Spring XML

    <from uri="telegram:bots/123456789:insertAuthorizationTokenHere"/>
    <bean ref="myBean" />

<bean id="myBean" class="com.example.MyBean"/>

The MyBean is a simple bean that will receive the messages

public class MyBean {

    public void process(String message) {
        // or Exchange, or org.apache.camel.component.telegram.model.IncomingMessage (or both)

        // do process


Supported types for incoming messages are

Java TypeDescription


The full object representation of an incoming message


The content of the message, for text messages only

317.7. Reactive Chat-Bot Example

The reactive chat-bot mode is a simple way of using the Camel component to build a simple chat bot that replies directly to chat messages received from the Telegram users.

The following is a basic configuration of the chat-bot in Java DSL


or in Spring XML

    <bean ref="chatBotLogic" />

<bean id="chatBotLogic" class="com.example.ChatBotLogic"/>

The ChatBotLogic is a simple bean that implements a generic String-to-String method.

public class ChatBotLogic {

    public String chatBotProcess(String message) {
        if( "do-not-reply".equals(message) ) {
            return null; // no response in the chat

        return "echo from the bot: " + message; // echoes the message


Every non-null string returned by the chatBotProcess method is automatically routed to the chat that originated the request (as the CamelTelegramChatId header is used to route the message).

317.8. Getting the Chat ID

If you want to push messages to a specific Telegram chat when an event occurs, you need to retrieve the corresponding chat ID. The chat ID is not currently shown in the telegram client, but you can obtain it using a simple route.

First, add the bot to the chat where you want to push messages, then run a route like the following one.


Any message received by the bot will be dumped to your log together with information about the chat (CamelTelegramChatId header).

Once you get the chat ID, you can use the following sample route to push message to it.


Note that the corresponding URI parameter is simply chatId.