Channel Commands Channels connect OpenFang agents to messaging platforms. OpenFang supports 40 messaging platforms including Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Matrix, and more.
openfang channel list List configured channels and their status.
Output CHANNEL ENV VAR STATUS --------------------------------------------------------------- webchat (built-in) Ready telegram TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN Ready discord DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN Missing env slack SLACK_BOT_TOKEN Not configured whatsapp WHATSAPP_API_KEY Not configured signal SIGNAL_PHONE_NUMBER Not configured matrix MATRIX_HOMESERVER_URL Not configured email EMAIL_SMTP_HOST Not configured
Status Values Status Description ReadyChannel is configured and credentials are available Missing envConfiguration exists but environment variable is missing Not configuredNo configuration block in config.toml
Checked Channels
webchat — Built-in web UI (always ready)telegram — Telegram Bot APIdiscord — Discord Botslack — Slack Botwhatsapp — WhatsApp Business APIsignal — Signal Messengermatrix — Matrix Protocolemail — SMTP/IMAP
And 32 more (LINE, Mastodon, Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, WeChat, etc.).
Example openfang channel setup Interactive setup wizard for a channel integration.
openfang channel setup [<CHANNEL>]
Arguments Argument Description <CHANNEL>Channel name (e.g., telegram, discord, slack). If omitted, displays an interactive picker.
Supported Channels
telegramdiscordslackwhatsappemailsignalmatrix
Wizard Steps Each wizard:
Displays step-by-step instructions for obtaining credentials
Prompts for tokens/credentials
Saves tokens to ~/.openfang/.env with owner-only permissions (0600 on Unix)
Appends the channel configuration block to config.toml (prompts for confirmation)
Warns to restart the daemon if one is running
Examples Interactive Picker
Telegram
Discord
Slack
# Show list of available channels openfang channel setup
openfang channel setup telegram
Steps:
Open https://t.me/BotFather
Send /newbot and follow instructions
Copy the bot token (looks like 123456:ABC-DEF...)
Paste when prompted
Configuration is saved to .env and config.toml
openfang channel setup discord
Steps:
Go to https://discord.com/developers/applications
Click “New Application”
Go to “Bot” tab → “Add Bot”
Copy the bot token
Enable “MESSAGE CONTENT INTENT”
Paste token when prompted
openfang channel setup slack
Steps:
Go to https://api.slack.com/apps
Create a new app
Add bot token scopes: chat:write, channels:history, im:history
Install app to workspace
Copy “Bot User OAuth Token”
Paste when prompted
Example Session (Telegram) openfang channel setup telegram
Output: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Telegram Bot Setup ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Step 1: Create a Telegram bot 1. Open https://t.me/BotFather in Telegram 2. Send /newbot 3. Follow the instructions to create your bot 4. Copy the bot token (looks like 123456:ABC-DEF...) Step 2: Enter your bot token Bot token: 123456789:ABCdefGHIjklMNOpqrsTUVwxyz ✓ Token saved to ~/.openfang/.env ✓ Testing token... OK Step 3: Add configuration to config.toml [[channels]] type = "telegram" enabled = true bot_token_env = "TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN" Add this to config.toml? [Y/n]: y ✓ Configuration added to ~/.openfang/config.toml Done! Telegram channel is now configured. ⚠ Restart the daemon to apply changes: openfang stop && openfang start Next steps: 1. Start the daemon: openfang start 2. Get your bot username from @BotFather 3. Send a message to your bot on Telegram 4. The agent will respond automatically
openfang channel test Send a test message through a configured channel.
openfang channel test < CHANNE L >
Arguments Argument Description <CHANNEL>Channel name to test (e.g., telegram, discord).
Behavior Requires a running daemon. Sends POST /api/channels/<channel>/test.
This command requires the daemon to be running. Start it with: Examples # Test Telegram channel openfang channel test telegram # Test Discord channel openfang channel test discord # Test Slack channel openfang channel test slack
Example Output Testing telegram channel... ✓ Test message sent successfully! Check your Telegram bot to confirm you received: "Test message from OpenFang at 2026-03-07 14:23:45"
openfang channel enable Enable a channel integration.
openfang channel enable < CHANNE L >
Arguments Argument Description <CHANNEL>Channel name to enable.
Behavior
Daemon mode : Sends POST /api/channels/<channel>/enable. Channel starts immediately.Without daemon : Prints a note that the change will take effect on next start.
Examples # Enable Discord channel openfang channel enable discord # Enable Slack channel openfang channel enable slack
Output ✓ Discord channel enabled The channel is now active and will receive messages.
openfang channel disable Disable a channel without removing its configuration.
openfang channel disable < CHANNE L >
Arguments Argument Description <CHANNEL>Channel name to disable.
Behavior
Daemon mode : Sends POST /api/channels/<channel>/disable. Channel stops immediately.Without daemon : Prints a note to edit config.toml and set enabled = false.
Examples # Disable Discord channel (keeps config) openfang channel disable discord # Disable Telegram channel openfang channel disable telegram
Output ✓ Discord channel disabled The channel is now inactive. Configuration is preserved. To re-enable: openfang channel enable discord
Complete Channel Setup Example
Setup Telegram
openfang channel setup telegram
Follow the wizard to get your bot token from @BotFather.
Restart Daemon
openfang stop openfang start
Test the Channel
openfang channel test telegram
Start Chatting
Send a message to your bot on Telegram. The agent will respond automatically!
Channel configurations are stored in ~/.openfang/config.toml:
[[ channels ]] type = "telegram" enabled = true bot_token_env = "TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN" [[ channels ]] type = "discord" enabled = false bot_token_env = "DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN" guild_id = "123456789" [[ channels ]] type = "slack" enabled = true bot_token_env = "SLACK_BOT_TOKEN" signing_secret_env = "SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET"
Credentials are stored in ~/.openfang/.env:
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN = 123456789:ABCdefGHIjklMNOpqrsTUVwxyz DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN = MTIzNDU2Nzg5MDEyMzQ1Njc4OTAuGhI-Jk.LmNoP_qRsTuVwXyZaBcDeFgHiJkLmN SLACK_BOT_TOKEN = xoxb-1234567890-1234567890-ABCdefGHIjklMNOpqrsTUVw SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET = 0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef
The .env file contains secrets. It is automatically created with owner-only permissions (0600 on Unix). Never commit it to version control.
LINE
WeChat
Viber
Threema
Wire
Keybase
Mattermost
Rocket.Chat
Zulip
IRC
XMPP
Gitter
Next Steps
Agent Commands Connect agents to channels
Channel Development Create custom channel adapters
Channel API Manage channels via REST API
CLI Overview Back to CLI overview
