Group chat and multi-user setup

Untether works in Telegram group chats, letting multiple people interact with coding agents from any device. This guide covers adding the bot to a group, restricting access, and configuring trigger behaviour.

Add the bot to a group

Add your Untether bot to a Telegram group like any other member. If you plan to use forum topics, promote the bot to admin with Manage Topics permission.

Forum topics If you want each thread to have its own project/branch context and session, enable topics in the group settings and see Topics for the full setup.

Restrict access with allowed_user_ids

By default, anyone in the group can interact with the bot. To restrict access to specific users, set allowed_user_ids:

=== “untether config”

```sh
untether config set transports.telegram.allowed_user_ids "[12345, 67890]"
```

=== “toml”

```toml title="~/.untether/untether.toml"
[transports.telegram]
allowed_user_ids = [12345, 67890]
```

When allowed_user_ids is non-empty, only listed Telegram user IDs can start runs and interact with the bot. Messages from other users are silently ignored.

To find your Telegram user ID, run:

untether chat-id

Then send a message — Untether prints the chat ID and your user ID.

Per-sender session isolation

In group chats, each user gets their own independent session. User A’s conversation history and context are completely separate from User B’s — there is no cross-talk between sessions.

Set trigger mode for groups

By default, the bot responds to every message (all mode). In busy groups, switch to mentions mode so the bot only responds when @mentioned:

/trigger mentions

Command	Behaviour
/trigger	Show the current trigger mode
/trigger all	Respond to every message
/trigger mentions	Only respond to @bot_name mentions
/trigger clear	Reset to the default (all)

What triggers a response in mentions mode In mentions mode, the bot responds when any of these conditions are met:

- **@mention** — include `@your_bot_name` anywhere in the message
- **Reply to the bot** — reply to any message the bot sent
- **Slash command** — use a known command like `/claude`, `/cancel`, `/usage`, or a project alias like `/myproject`

All other messages are silently ignored.

Per-topic overrides In forum groups, you can set trigger mode per topic. A topic override takes priority over the chat-level default. For example, set mentions on general chat but leave coding topics on all. See Topics for details.

Admin-only commands

In group chats, certain commands require admin or creator status:

• /model — change the model
• /reasoning — change reasoning level
• /agent — change the default engine
• /trigger — change trigger mode

In private chats, these commands are always available without restriction.

File transfer in groups

File transfer (/file put, /file get) in group chats requires admin or creator status by default. To allow specific non-admin users to transfer files, set the file-specific allowed list:

=== “untether config”

```sh
untether config set transports.telegram.files.allowed_user_ids "[12345, 67890]"
```

=== “toml”

```toml title="~/.untether/untether.toml"
[transports.telegram.files]
enabled = true
allowed_user_ids = [12345, 67890]
```

When files.allowed_user_ids is empty (the default), private chats are allowed and group usage requires admin privileges.

Related

• Topics — bind forum threads to projects and branches
• Configuration — full config reference
• Security hardening — restrict access and protect your instance
• Route by chat — bind specific chats to projects