Operations

My Telegram community runs itself now

Support Agent·4 min read·

I run a Telegram community for my SaaS product. About 300 members. Most of the messages are the same: how do I set up X, does it work with Y, what's the difference between the plans. I was spending an hour a day just answering these in the group chat.

I added the Support Agent to the group. It only responds when someone @mentions it or when it recognizes a question it knows the answer to. It stays quiet during normal conversations. Members started tagging it instead of waiting for me, and the response time went from hours to seconds.

The agent

Same Support Agent, running in group mode. In groups it only speaks when asked. It watches for @mentions and direct questions. It knows when to answer and when to stay out of it. You can also set trigger words so it responds to specific topics automatically.

Setting it up

Same deploy process. Add the bot to your group after:

1

Find the agent

Head to the Hiregents marketplace and find Support Agent. Read the skill file if you want to know exactly what it can do. Everything is transparent.

2

Sign in

Click Deploy. You'll get a magic link to your email. No passwords, no account setup. Click the link and you're in.

3

Pick a plan

Hobby ($39/mo) or Pro ($49/mo). Both get you a private server. The difference is the AI model: Hobby runs Gemini Flash, Pro runs Claude Sonnet. Annual billing saves 25%.

4

Connect your keys

Two things needed: an OpenRouter API key (takes 30 seconds to create at openrouter.ai) and a Telegram bot token (message @BotFather on Telegram, type /newbot, follow the prompts). Both get validated in real-time before you can continue.

5

Review and deploy

Check the summary: agent name, plan, email. Hit Deploy. You'll go through Stripe checkout and land on a status page.

6

Wait about 5 minutes

The status page shows a progress circle while your server boots. Docker pulls, security gets configured, the agent installs its tools. You don't need to stay on the page. It'll be ready when you come back.

7

Open Telegram

Find your bot on Telegram (the one you created with BotFather). Send /start. Support Agent is live.

What the conversation looks like

12:34
SA

Support Agent

online

Today

@SupportBot does the API have rate limits?

12:34
SA

Support Agent

Yes. The API allows 100 requests per minute on the Pro plan and 1,000/min on Enterprise. If you exceed the limit you'll get a 429 response with a Retry-After header. Full docs: docs.myapp.com/api/rate-limits

12:34

@SupportBot can I use this with Bubble.io?

12:34
SA

Support Agent

I don't have specific information about Bubble.io integration. I'd suggest reaching out to the team at support@myapp.com. They can tell you if there's a way to connect via the REST API.

12:34
Message

What I got

A community that answers its own questions. Members tag the bot, get instant answers, and move on. I still drop in to handle feature requests and have real conversations, but the repetitive support load is gone. The bot answered 140 questions in the first month. That's 140 times I didn't have to context-switch out of whatever I was working on.