Part 1 — create a bot and get TELEGRAM_TOKEN (~1 minute):
- Open Telegram and search for @BotFather (the official bot with a blue check). Tap Start.
- Send the message
/newbot.
- It asks for a display name — type anything, e.g.
My Rotor Alerts.
- It asks for a username — it must end in
bot and be unused, e.g. myrotor_alerts_bot.
- BotFather replies with your bot token — a long string like
1234567890:AAH8x…. That is TELEGRAM_TOKEN. Treat it like a password.
Part 2 — get TELEGRAM_NORMAL_CHAT_ID (~1 minute). Easiest: skip this part — give your agent just the bot token, and the generated prompt tells it to find your chat ID for you (it will ask you to message the bot once). To do it yourself:
- In BotFather's reply, tap the link to your new bot (
t.me/your_bot) and press Start, or just send it any message like hi. Bots can't message you first — this step is required.
- In any browser, open
https://api.telegram.org/bot<YOUR_TOKEN>/getUpdates — paste your token right after bot, no space or brackets.
- In the reply, find
"chat":{"id":1234567890… — that number is your chat ID, i.e. TELEGRAM_NORMAL_CHAT_ID. If you see "result":[], send the bot another message and refresh.
Want alerts in a group instead? Add the bot to the group, send a message there, refresh the same getUpdates page, and use that chat's id (group ids are negative numbers — include the minus sign).
Rotor can also use two more optional channels: TELEGRAM_IMPORTANT_CHAT_ID and TELEGRAM_DEBUG_CHAT_ID — same procedure, different chats.