Telegram Managed Bot Factory

A self-hosted MCP control plane that turns one user-owned Telegram manager bot into isolated, useful child bots. Ask Hermes for a supported bot, confirm that specific creation in Telegram, and the persistent Factory worker retrieves and contains the child credential without exposing it to the model or MCP.

Version 0.2.3 is terminal-only: no Desktop bootstrap exists. Each PyPI version is immutable; install the pinned release below.

Why this matters

Creating a bot manually involves a valuable credential and a real external side effect. Factory makes that workflow explicit: an agent can prepare a bounded request, but the owner approves creation in Telegram and the persistent worker receives the resulting credential outside the agent context.

What I built

I designed the MCP/control-plane boundary, the durable worker lifecycle, credential isolation, request state and reconciliation rules, then packaged and released the tool for self-hosted use. The design deliberately does not claim exactly-once external effects: a crash-ambiguous result is surfaced for reconciliation instead of being blindly retried.

Install

Requires Linux with systemd --user, Python 3.11–3.14, uv, Hermes 0.18, and a separate Telegram bot with Bot Management Mode enabled.

uvx --refresh --from telegram-managed-bot-factory==0.2.3 bot-factory install-hermes

The local installer first verifies systemd --user and enables verified user lingering so the worker survives SSH logout, then securely prompts once for the manager credential, enrolls the owner, installs and verifies the persistent user service and a fresh worker heartbeat, registers the nine-tool stdio server with Hermes, and verifies discovery. It creates no child bot.

Terminal-only first run

Run the install command from an interactive SSH or console terminal on the same Linux host that will run the worker. It performs the complete setup in that terminal:

1. install the exact Factory version as a persistent uv tool (the worker unit never points at an evictable uvx cache);
2. verify systemd --user and enable verified user lingering before requesting any credential;
3. accept the manager token only through hidden terminal input;
4. enroll the owner, install the service, require it to be active, and observe a fresh worker heartbeat;
5. register and verify the nine-tool stdio server with Hermes; any Hermes confirmation stays visible in this terminal.

There is no GUI launcher and no unconfigured MCP bootstrap tool. Until this command completes, Factory MCP deliberately refuses to start. The token must never be pasted into Hermes chat, an MCP argument, a shell command, or an environment variable.

How it works

You → Hermes → Factory MCP ──durable request──▶ persistent worker
                  ▲                                │
                  │ safe status                    │ Bot API
                  │                                ▼
                  └──── Telegram confirmation ◀─ manager bot
                                                   │ child credential
                                                   ▼
                                         isolated child runtime

Hermes and MCP are the non-secret control plane. The persistent worker alone polls the manager bot and retrieves credentials. Each child receives only its own credential and uses instance-local state.

Useful profiles

The same four built-in profiles are exposed as a strict Hermes function catalog. After Telegram confirms and provisions a child, use factory_list_functions, then factory_attach_function with the existing child slug and confirm=true. Repeating the same attach is a no-op; rebinding keeps the bot username and Telegram identity. Pause and resume continue to use the existing stop/start tools.

owner_echo is also included as an owner-only isolation and health smoke test. Profiles cannot provide arbitrary code, executables, filesystem paths, HTML, agent tools, or remote fetches.

60–90 second demo

After installation, ask Hermes:

Create a quick FAQ bot named “Studio FAQ” with username studio_faq_bot. Welcome: “Choose a question.” Add pricing, turnaround, and contact FAQs.

Hermes returns the Telegram creation link. Open it, approve once, then open the new child and send /start, /faq 1, and /health. If provisioning is still in progress, ask Hermes for the request status. For the other profiles, submit one test lead and try owner-only /export confirm then /purge confirm, or save a URL in link_inbox, inspect /list, and use /done 1.

Platform and boundaries

• Supported runtime: Linux with systemd --user; Ubuntu and WSL2 are tested.
• Supported clients: Hermes 0.18 legacy stdio and tested MCP 2026-07-28 paths.
• Not supported: Windows/macOS installation, hosted multi-tenancy, arbitrary child code, automatic bot-account deletion, or bypassing Telegram approval.
• The manager bot is user-owned and separate from the Hermes gateway bot.
• Every child creation requires Telegram confirmation; this is not “one-click.”
• The Official MCP Registry listing is metadata, not a security certification.

Security highlights

• Tokens never enter MCP arguments/results, chat, CLI arguments, YAML, SQLite, manifests, logs, traces, fixtures, or Git.
• Secret directories are 0700, files are 0600, and child credentials travel through an inherited anonymous file descriptor rather than argv or environment.
• Child inbound update IDs and offsets are durable. Completed collisions are no-ops; a crash-ambiguous side effect is quarantined for reconciliation, not silently retried. External effects are not claimed to be exactly once.
• Inputs are bounded and validated; profiles cannot execute or fetch supplied content.

See the security policy and architecture for the full boundary model.

Documentation and source

• Source and issues
• Specification · acceptance · status · publication evidence
• Changelog · contributing · security
• Telegram Managed Bots · Official MCP Registry entry

Troubleshooting and removal

Check the worker and Hermes registration without sharing unreviewed journal output:

systemctl --user status bot-factory-manager.service
hermes mcp test bot-factory

On WSL2, PID 1 must be systemd, and the distribution must remain running. Uninstalling the service/package does not delete Factory data or revoke Telegram bots; review local XDG bot-factory directories and BotFather controls separately.