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Getting Started

Everything needed to get mcp-tg running against a Telegram account, in the order you need it.

This is a user account client over MTProto, not a bot — so it authenticates as you, with your phone number and 2FA, and the stored session is a bearer credential with full account access. That shapes the whole section: install, configure, log in once, and keep the session where it belongs.

Sections

  • Installation

    Homebrew, container, or a signed release binary — and how to register the server with an MCP client.

    Installation

  • Configuration

    Every environment variable and command-line flag, with its default.

    Configuration

  • Authentication

    The mcp-tg login flow, where the session is stored, and how to recover a revoked one.

    Authentication

The short version

Get an app id and hash from my.telegram.org — the public builds carry no credentials — then:

export TELEGRAM_APP_ID=12345
export TELEGRAM_APP_HASH=your_app_hash

mcp-tg login                  # interactive, writes the session to the OS keychain
claude mcp add mcp-tg -- mcp-tg

Serving several MCP clients at once? Run one shared HTTP daemon instead of a process each — see Transport modes.