meraGPT

messaging

Wire Telegram, Discord, Slack into your box

Hermes v0.16 (the build your box is on right now) added a real browser admin panel for messaging. You no longer have to SSH in and edit config.yaml — every supported platform is a clickable card on the Channels page.

This guide walks Telegram end-to-end with screenshots from a live box; the same shape works for Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Matrix, Signal, Mattermost and the long tail. The gateway process restarts itself after every change, so the bot is live within seconds of you clicking Save & enable.

The Channels page

Open your box (Open your agent in your meraGPT dashboard, or the URL app.meragpt.com/u/<your-handle>/), click Channels in the left sidebar. Every supported platform is listed with a Test button and a Configure button.

The Channels admin panel in v0.16: rows for Telegram, Discord, Slack, Mattermost, Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and others; each row has a Test and Configure button.
The Channels page on a fresh box. Every platform is disabled until you hit Configure and add credentials.

The blue note at the top — “Credentials are written to ~/.hermes/.env; the gateway connects each enabled channel on its next restart” — is the entire model. Your secrets stay in a file on your box (mode 0600), and the gateway pulls them in when it starts.

Telegram, in four fields

Telegram is the most popular setup, so it’s the example. Click Configure on the Telegram row. You get a modal with three inputs:

The Configure Telegram modal: bot token, allowed user IDs, optional proxy URL, Cancel and Save & enable buttons.
  1. Telegram bot token — the token @BotFather hands you when you create a bot. Looks like 7123456789:AAH.... Paste it here.
  2. Allowed Telegram user IDs — a comma-separated list of Telegram user IDs that are permitted to talk to your bot. Get yours from @userinfobot (it’ll DM you a number when you /start it). Without an allowlist the gateway refuses every message — that’s a deliberate safety default; otherwise anyone who guessed your bot username could chat with the agent on your dime.
  3. Telegram proxy URL — optional. Leave empty unless you actually need to tunnel.
  4. Hit Save & enable. The modal closes; the Telegram row flips from Disabled to Connected within a couple of seconds, with a green check mark and a live badge.
Channels page after Save & enable: Telegram row shows a green check mark, a Connected badge, the toggle on, and 'Existing Telegram credentials are configured' underneath.
What success looks like. The Telegram row stays at the top and shows it’s live. No restart click, no SSH.

Verifying it works

Two ways to confirm before you trust it:

  • On the Channels page, click Test on the Telegram row. The dashboard sends a probe through the configured bot — you should see a success toast and optionally a test message arrive in Telegram.
  • Open Telegram, find your bot (the username @BotFather gave you), send /start, then send anything. The agent should reply within a second or two.

If nothing happens, the Logs page in the sidebar shows the gateway’s recent activity. Most Telegram failures are either a wrong/expired bot token (the log says 401 Unauthorized) or an empty allowlist (the log says user XXXXX not allowed after you send a message). Both are fixable from the same modal — Configure, fix, Save & enable again.

The other platforms

Each row works the same way. The credentials each one wants:

  • Discord — bot token from the Discord Developer Portal + the channel IDs you want the bot to listen in.
  • Slack — runs in Socket Mode (no public webhook URL needed). You need an app-level token (xapp-...) and a bot token (xoxb-...) from api.slack.com/apps.
  • Mattermost / Matrix / Signal / WhatsApp — each row links to the upstream Hermes setup guide inline in the modal. The pattern is always the same: paste credentials, hit Save & enable, the gateway picks them up.

You can enable as many platforms as you want in parallel. The same agent answers messages from all of them — same sessions, same memory, same model.

Where the credentials actually live

The modal writes the values into ~/.hermes/.env on your box (with file mode 0600 — only the agent user can read it). Nothing is ever sent to meraGPT servers, and nothing leaves your box. If you SSH in you can see the file directly; if you cancel your meraGPT subscription the box is destroyed and so is the file.

One-time gotcha after a v0.16 upgrade

If you had a messaging channel configured on Hermes v0.14 (before June 2026), your old setup probably won’t carry over. Hermes restructured how it stores platform config between v0.14 and v0.16, and the old format isn’t a drop-in. The fix is what this whole page is: open the Channels card and re-enter the credentials. It takes under a minute. Sorry about the manual step — it’s a one-time thing.

Need help?

Email hello@meragpt.com with the platform you’re trying to wire up and the last 20 lines from the Logs page on your box. We read everything.