Custom commands
Text commands and button commands are built from the same modal in the dashboard's **Commands** tab. A command saved with buttons attached is a button…
Text commands and button commands are built from the same modal in the dashboard's Commands tab. A command saved with buttons attached is a button command; one without is a text command.
Creating a bot command
The Commands tab lists every command for the bot and adds new ones with Add Command. The response is rich text.
Editing can flip a command either way: remove every button to make it a text command, or add one to make it a button command.
Custom commands answer in any chat the bot is in — they don't check the allowed-groups list.
The response editor
Selecting text inside the response field pops up a formatting toolbar.
Selection toolbar
| Button | Does |
|---|---|
| Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough | Standard text formatting |
| Monospace | Code formatting |
| Spoiler | Telegram spoiler |
| Hyperlink | Turns the selection into a link — the URL must start with https:// |
| Remove link | Strips a link back to plain text |
The modal toolbar also has Undo / Redo, a premium emoji inserter and a divider inserter.
The button board
Each button has a label, a URL, a colour, a layout and an optional premium-emoji icon.
Button board limits
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Buttons per command | 12 |
| Label length | 64 characters |
| URL scheme | https:// only. A bare host gets https:// added; an http:// URL is rejected on save: Button URLs must use HTTPS |
| Colours | Gray (default), Blue, Green, Red |
| Layout | Horizontal or Stacked — Stacked is the default |
A button can carry one premium emoji next to its label, picked from your own emoji packs or pasted as a premium emoji ID (5 to 32 digits).
Handling duplicate command triggers
A trigger must be unique across every text command, button command and character trigger on the same bot.
Trigger validation errors
| Situation | Message |
|---|---|
| Bad format | Trigger must be alphanumeric (letters, numbers, underscore only) |
| Matches a character's trigger | Trigger cannot be the same as a character command (/x) |
| Matches another text command | Command with trigger "x" already exists |
| Matches another button command | Button command with trigger "x" already exists |
| A text and a button command would share one trigger | A button command with trigger "x" already exists. Triggers must be unique across text and button commands. |
Slash optional
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
| Saved trigger | ca |
| All of these match | /ca /ca@yourbotusername ca |
Built-in commands are matched first, so a custom command whose trigger matches one of them doesn't get to answer.
Reserved trigger words
A character's trigger command can't be renamed to one of these 7 built-in words:
- start
- commands
- getid
- holders
- ban
- mute
Limits
Per-command limits
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Visible reply length | 4096 characters — Telegram's cap |
Over the limit, saving fails with Response exceeds Telegram's 4096 character limit (N visible characters).
Hyperlink navigation entries
Beta
Hyperlink navigation is currently in beta.
The Commands tab can edit a hyperlink navigation entry but not create one — new ones start from the Beta tab's nav builder. A nav entry can't be cloned or converted to a button command.