Setup guide

Connect your AI to Telegram

Wire Claude Desktop, Claude Code or any MCP client into your Telegram. Your AI reads, searches, summarises and replies — while everything runs on your own phone. We never store your chats.

Before you start

BOB Chat is a relay: your AI talks to a tiny local server, which forwards each request to the BOB Chat app on your phone. So first link the phone:

Link your phone

  1. Install BOB Chat (Android) and sign into Telegram.
  2. Open Accounts → Remote control (MCP) and sign in to your bob.tools account (one-time email code).
  3. This links the phone as a chat-control device for that account.

Remote control needs a paid BOB Chat plan. Get the Android app from bob.tools.

1 · Add BOB Chat to your AI

The quickest way is the plugin marketplace — no install, just add the repo and sign in. Same address for both clients: bob-tools/bob-plugins.

Claude Code — plugin marketplace

Add the marketplace once, then install the plugin:

/plugin marketplace add bob-tools/bob-plugins
/plugin install bob-chat@bob-tools/bob-plugins

Connects over HTTPS — no npm needed. Sign in when prompted (step 2).

Codex — plugin marketplace

In the Codex app: Plugins → Add plugin marketplace, then enter the repo (Git ref main, leave Sparse paths empty):

bob-tools/bob-plugins

Then add the BOB Chat plugin from the list. CLI equivalent: codex plugin marketplace add bob-tools/bob-plugins.

Claude Desktop — one click

Download the bundle and double-click it. Claude Desktop installs the server and shows a settings form — no Node or terminal needed.

Download bob-chat.mcpb

Cursor & other MCP clients

Add a remote (HTTP) server — OAuth signs you in on first use:

https://api.bob.tools/mcp-chat

Local-only client? Run npm install -g bob-chat-mcp and use a stdio entry { "command": "bob-chat-mcp" }. See the MCP spec for config locations.

2 · Sign in

The first time your AI uses a tool, a browser opens to sign in to bob.tools — your client handles the OAuth automatically (in Claude Code you can also run /mcp → Authenticate). Sign in and you're done; tokens are saved and refresh automatically.

Use the same account
  • Sign in with the same bob.tools account you linked in the app
  • That match is how the server routes a command to your phone

3 · Confirm the link

Ask your AI to list devices — it calls chat_list_devices and you should see your phone. Then try it out:

Catch up

"Summarise my unread Telegram chats"

Reply

"Tell Anna I'll be 10 minutes late"

Search

"Find that invoice link someone sent me last week"

Available tools

chat_search_contacts

Resolve a name or @handle to the right account and chat.

chat_search_messages

Semantic search across your incoming messages.

chat_unread

A digest of every chat with unread messages.

chat_recent

The most recent messages in one chat.

chat_send

Send a text message to a chat.

chat_mark_read

Mark a chat's unread messages as read.

chat_list_devices

List the BOB Chat phones linked to your account.

chat_authenticate

Sign in / out and check status (handled for you).

Private by design — nothing stored on our servers

Every request is fetched live from your phone, passed to your AI, and forgotten — held for seconds, never saved. That also means your phone has to be online. See plans & pricing →