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Open Net Worth Docs

Telegram

Connect a Telegram bot and you can talk to Lucius from your phone exactly as you do in the app — ask questions, send a photo of a receipt, and approve or deny changes with a tap. Price and news alerts, and reports from your Automations, can arrive there too.

The bot is yours: you create it, and only the chats you approve can reach it. Your computer doesn’t need to be reachable from the internet — the app connects out to Telegram.

Setup takes about five minutes.

1. Create a bot and copy its token

  1. In Telegram, open a chat with @BotFather (Telegram’s official bot for making bots — check for the blue verified tick).
  2. Send /newbot. Give it a display name (for example My Lucius), then a username that ends in bot (for example my_lucius_bot).
  3. BotFather replies with a token that looks like 123456789:ABCdef…. Copy it.

Keep the token private — anyone who has it can control your bot.

2. Add the Telegram connector

  1. Open Connectors in the sidebar, click Browse & add, choose Channels, click Telegram, then Add connector.
  2. Paste the token into Bot token.
  3. Under Who can chat, pick one:
    • Pairing — new senders ask for approval. The easiest way to let yourself in: you message the bot and approve the request in the app (step 3 below).
    • Allowlist — only the IDs you list. Only the chat IDs you type into Allowed chat IDs can reach Lucius. This is selected for a new connector. A blank list means nobody can.
  4. Click Save. The bot goes online within a few seconds.

3. Let yourself in

With Pairing:

  1. In Telegram, open your bot (search for its username) and send it any ordinary message, such as hi.
  2. The bot replies that you’re not approved yet and gives you a pairing code.
  3. In Open Net Worth, open the Telegram connector and choose ⋯ (More actions) → Edit configuration. Under Pending approvals, check the code matches and click Approve (or Reject to clear a request you don’t recognise).
  4. Your chat now appears under People who can chat. Send the bot another message — Lucius answers.

With Allowlist:

  1. Send /id to your bot. It replies with your chat ID (a number).
  2. In the Telegram connector’s form, type that number into Allowed chat IDs and click Save. Separate several IDs with commas. A group chat’s ID starts with -.

4. Check that it works

Send your bot /start — it should introduce itself and list its commands — then ask something real:

What’s my net worth?

If the bot doesn’t answer at all, see Troubleshooting.

Using it

Talk to it like the in-app chat. Useful commands:

CommandWhat it does
/newStart a fresh conversation
/stopStop the reply that’s being written
/idShow this chat’s ID
/modelShow or switch the AI model
/statusModel, response depth and today’s AI cost
/costToday’s and the last 30 days’ AI spend
/effortSet response depth: low, medium, high or max
/streaming, /suggestions, /toolstreamTurn live-updating replies, follow-up suggestions, or “what I’m doing” progress on or off
/helpShow the full list

You can also send photos (a receipt, a screenshot of a statement) and documents.

Approving changes. When Lucius wants to change something that needs your OK, the message comes with buttons — ✓ Once, ✓ Always, ✗ Deny (or ✓ Apply / ✗ Discard). They work exactly like confirm cards in the app: the change that runs is exactly the one shown, whatever is typed in between. A card only responds to taps in the chat it was sent to.

Getting alerts and reports here. The ready-made report Automations — Daily briefing, Weekly report, Monthly report — send to Telegram when it’s connected. See Automations.

Who can reach Lucius

  • Anyone in an approved chat is treated as you, with the same access as the web app — including your financial data. Only approve chats you control.
  • In a group chat, everyone in the group can talk to Lucius and tap approval buttons. Prefer a private chat with the bot.
  • To remove someone, delete their ID from People who can chat / Allowed chat IDs and click Save.
  • Pause on the connector’s page stops the bot answering anyone until you click Resume. ⋯ → Remove connector deletes the token and shuts the bot out completely.

Where your token is stored

On this machine only. It’s never sent to Lucius or the AI model, never included in an export, and left out of a sanitised backup (see Backup and restore). The Bot token field hides it; you can reveal it with the eye icon to check what’s saved, and that reveal is logged.

If you think the token leaked, send /revoke to @BotFather to get a new one, then paste the new token into Bot token and click Save.

Troubleshooting

The bot doesn’t reply at all

  • Check the connector isn’t paused (its page shows Resume if it is).
  • Under Allowlist, your chat ID must be in Allowed chat IDs. Send /id to the bot and compare.
  • The token may be wrong or revoked — paste it again from @BotFather.
  • Only one copy of Open Net Worth can run a given bot at a time. If you run the app on two machines (or a test copy) with the same token, they knock each other offline — use a separate bot for each.

“Hi! You’ll need to be added before I can help…” — your chat isn’t approved. That reply includes your chat ID: add it to Allowed chat IDs, or switch to Pairing and approve the request.

“You’re not approved to use this assistant yet. Ask the operator to approve pairing code …” — approve that code under Pending approvals on the Telegram connector’s form.

“This bot isn’t set up for you yet — try /start or /help.” — same cause: the chat isn’t approved yet.

No pending request appears — make sure Who can chat is set to Pairing and saved, then send the bot an ordinary message (not a / command).