hermes-telegram-business

Observe-with-approval Telegram Business Mode (secretary bot) for Hermes Agent.

Connect your Telegram Business account to your Hermes bot and it becomes your secretary: every incoming customer message gets an LLM-drafted reply delivered to your DM with inline buttons — nothing reaches the customer until you tap Send.

Customer → your Business account (via Business Mode)
            ↓ debounce 8s, draft once
Bot → your DM
       💬 Carol wrote:
         > Hey, are you free Friday afternoon?

       📝 Suggested reply:
       Friday afternoon works — anywhere between 2 and 5pm?

       [✓ Send]   [✎ Edit]   [✕ Discard]
            ↓
Send    → delivered to the customer via your Business connection
Edit    → your next DM text becomes the outgoing message
Discard → dropped, the customer sees nothing

Safety properties

• No auto-send exists. Every reply requires an owner button tap, even when can_reply is granted.
• Owner-only buttons. Callbacks are authorized against the connection's owner_user_id; anyone else gets ⛔.
• Drafts expire after 24h (configurable). Stale buttons no-op.
• Without can_reply, the Send button is hidden — you're told to copy/paste manually instead of getting a button that silently fails.
• Typing bursts coalesce — new messages within the debounce window supersede the prior draft, one draft per coherent thought.

Requirements

• Hermes Agent with plugin Telegram-handler support (ctx.register_telegram_handler, hermes-agent PR #59159 / v0.18+)
• A Telegram Business subscription on your personal account
• Your Hermes Telegram bot with Business Mode toggled on in @BotFather
• python-telegram-bot ≥ 21.1 (already installed with the Hermes Telegram platform)

Install

git clone https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-telegram-business \
    ~/.hermes/plugins/telegram-business
hermes plugins enable telegram-business

Restart the gateway (hermes gateway restart). Then:

1. @BotFather → your bot → Business Mode → enable.
2. Telegram → Settings → Business → Chatbots → add your bot → pick which chats it can see, and whether it can reply on your behalf (needed for the Send button).
3. Message your bot /biz to confirm the connection is live.

Owner controls

Configuration

Optional block in ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

plugins:
  entries:
    telegram-business:
      debounce_seconds: 8        # coalesce typing bursts
      draft_ttl_hours: 24        # stale-draft expiry
      max_customer_text_chars: 4000
      owner_persona: >
        You are drafting replies for a freelance photographer.
        Friendly, brief, always suggest a concrete next step.

Drafting uses your active Hermes model through the host-owned plugin LLM surface (ctx.llm) — no separate API key.

State

Plugin-owned SQLite at ~/.hermes/telegram-business/state.db (two tables: connections + drafts). Hermes' core state is never touched. Delete the file to reset.

v1 limits

• Text only — customer media (photos, voice, documents) is skipped; captions do trigger drafts.
• No conversation history — each customer message is drafted in isolation. The Edit button absorbs the gap.
• No persona learning from edits — your overrides go to the customer but don't train future drafts.

Tests

python3 -m pytest

37 tests covering connection lifecycle, draft supersession, debounce coalescing, all three button paths, edit capture, owner-scoped callback authorization, and /biz subcommands. No network, no live Telegram.

Credits

Based on the design and implementation from hermes-agent#30055, replatformed as a standalone plugin. Related earlier community proposals: #26654 by @evgyur (earliest submission), #35342 by @MilekhinAV, #46728 by @kxnkxv.

License

MIT