kabi-tg-cli 0.4.1

Telethon-powered Telegram CLI for local sync, search, and agent-friendly retrieval

tg-cli

Telethon-powered Telegram CLI for local-first sync, search, export, and agent-friendly retrieval.

It uses your own Telegram account over MTProto, not the Bot API. Messages are synced into local SQLite, so humans and AI agents can query the same cache quickly with --json or --yaml.

Features

• Sync Telegram dialogs into a local SQLite cache
• Search by keyword or regex, with chat, sender, and time filters
• Browse recent messages, today's messages, top senders, and timelines
• Export messages as text, JSON, or YAML
• Keep a near-real-time cache with tg listen --persist
• Prefer YAML for AI agents when a strict JSON parser is not required

Installation

# Install from PyPI
uv tool install kabi-tg-cli

# Or: pipx / pip
pipx install kabi-tg-cli
pip install kabi-tg-cli

Install from GitHub:

uv tool install git+https://github.com/jackwener/tg-cli.git

Install from source:

git clone [e-mail]:jackwener/tg-cli.git
cd tg-cli
uv sync --extra dev

Quick Start

# Configure credentials first
export TG_API_ID=123456
export TG_API_HASH=your_telegram_app_hash
# Or create a .env file with the same variables

# Login (first run) — enter phone + verification code
tg chats

# Check who you are
tg whoami

# Refresh local cache from all current dialogs
tg refresh

# See today's messages
tg today

# Search
tg search "Rust"
tg search "Rust" --sender "Alice" --hours 48
tg search "Rust|Golang" --regex --hours 72
tg recent --hours 24 --limit 20 --yaml
tg search "Rust" --sync-first --yaml

# Filter by keywords (comma-separated, OR logic)
tg filter "Rust,Golang,Java" --hours 48 --sync-first

# Keep a near-real-time local cache
tg listen --persist

# Send a message
tg send "GroupName" "Hello!"

Why This Exists

tg-cli is intentionally local-first:

• tg refresh, tg sync, tg sync-all, and tg listen ingest data from Telegram
• today, recent, search, filter, stats, top, and timeline read from local SQLite

That makes repeated analysis fast, scriptable, and suitable for AI agents. If you need fresh data right before a query, use --sync-first.

Commands

Telegram (tg ...)

Command	Description
tg chats [--type group] [--json|--yaml]	List joined chats
tg whoami [--json|--yaml]	Show current user info
tg history CHAT -n 1000	Fetch historical messages
tg sync CHAT	Incremental sync (only new messages)
tg sync-all [--json|--yaml]	Low-level sync for all current dialogs
tg refresh [--json|--yaml]	Recommended daily refresh entrypoint
tg listen [CHATS...] [--persist]	Real-time listener with optional auto-reconnect
tg info CHAT [--json|--yaml]	Show detailed chat info
tg send CHAT "msg"	Send a message

Query

Command	Description
search KEYWORD [-c NAME] [-s SENDER] [--hours N] [--regex] [--sync-first] [--json|--yaml]	Search stored messages with chat/sender/time filters or regex
recent [-c NAME] [-s SENDER] [--hours N] [-n LIMIT] [--sync-first] [--json|--yaml]	Browse recent messages without a keyword
filter KEYWORDS [-c NAME] [--hours N] [--sync-first] [--json|--yaml]	Multi-keyword filter (OR logic, highlighted)
stats [--sync-first] [--json|--yaml]	Show message statistics
top [-c NAME] [--hours 24] [--sync-first] [--json|--yaml]	Most active senders
timeline [-c NAME] [--by day|hour] [--sync-first] [--json|--yaml]	Message activity bar chart
today [-c NAME] [--sync-first] [--json|--yaml]	Show today's messages by chat

Command	Description
export CHAT [-f text|json|yaml] [-o FILE] [--hours N]	Export messages
purge CHAT [-y]	Delete stored messages

Global Options

Option	Description
-v, --verbose	Enable debug logging
--version	Show version

Setup

uv tool install kabi-tg-cli  # or: pip install kabi-tg-cli
# Set TG_API_ID and TG_API_HASH in your shell or a .env file
tg chats

After that, tg-cli stores your session locally and reuses it.

Required:

• Set TG_API_ID and TG_API_HASH in your environment or .env

Optional:

• Custom data dir: DATA_DIR=./data or DB_PATH=./data/messages.db
• Custom session file name: TG_SESSION_NAME=my_session

Apply for your own Telegram app credentials at my.telegram.org/apps.

Refresh Modes

tg-cli is local-first: search, recent, today, filter, stats, top, and timeline read from the local SQLite cache, not directly from Telegram.

• tg refresh is the recommended daily command. It refreshes all current dialogs and prints a short summary.
• tg sync-all is the lower-level primitive if you want explicit control in scripts.
• --sync-first is available on query commands when you want fresh data before reading.
• tg listen --persist keeps reconnecting automatically and is the closest thing to a live cache.

Examples:

tg refresh
tg today --sync-first --yaml
tg top --hours 24 --sync-first
tg listen --persist --retry-seconds 5

Automation Examples

If you do not want to run tg refresh manually, use a scheduler.

cron

See examples/tg-refresh.cron.

systemd user timer

See:

• tg-refresh.service
• tg-refresh.timer

Typical flow:

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
cp examples/systemd/tg-refresh.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
cp examples/systemd/tg-refresh.timer ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now tg-refresh.timer

Manual Smoke Test

With valid TG_API_ID, TG_API_HASH, and a working local session:

tg whoami
tg refresh --yaml
tg recent --hours 24 --limit 5 --yaml
tg search "test" --hours 24 --sync-first --yaml
tg today --sync-first

These commands cover auth, sync, local reads, and structured output without sending messages.

Troubleshooting

• Missing TG_API_ID / TG_API_HASH
  • Apply for your own app credentials at my.telegram.org/apps.
• No messages today
  • Run tg refresh first, or use tg today --sync-first.
• Chat '...' not found in database
  • Run tg refresh first, or use the numeric chat_id from tg chats --yaml.
• Repeatedly running sync-all
  • Prefer tg refresh for daily use, --sync-first for single queries, or tg listen --persist for a near-live cache.

Architecture

src/tg_cli/
├── cli/
│   ├── main.py      # Click CLI entry point + verbose
│   ├── tg.py        # Telegram: chats, sync, refresh, listen, whoami, send
│   ├── query.py     # Query: search, regex, recent, filter, stats, today, top, timeline
├── client.py        # Telethon client (connection reuse)
├── config.py        # Config and required user-provided credentials
├── db.py            # SQLite message store

Use as AI Agent Skill

tg-cli ships with a SKILL.md for AI agent integration.

For AI agents, prefer --yaml when a downstream parser does not strictly require JSON. YAML is usually shorter than pretty-printed JSON and saves tokens while remaining structured.

Recommended agent pattern:

tg refresh --yaml
tg recent --hours 24 --sync-first --yaml
tg filter "招聘,remote" --hours 24 --sync-first --yaml

The recommended agent workflow is:

1. tg refresh --yaml
2. tg chats --yaml
3. tg recent --hours 24 --sync-first --yaml
4. tg search "keyword" --chat "GroupName" --sync-first --yaml

Claude Code / Antigravity

mkdir -p .agents/skills
git clone [e-mail]:jackwener/tg-cli.git .agents/skills/tg-cli

OpenClaw / ClawHub

clawhub install tg-cli

License

Apache-2.0