Why does the bot stay silent after setup?

Because nobody has messaged it. Telegram bots cannot start a conversation; send it a message, or add it to the group and say something there, then read the chat id from getUpdates.

Is there a public bot I can just follow?

Public HN alert bots exist and match by substring. FishOut uses a bot you create, so the token, the chat and the alerts are yours — and each post is read for relevance before it is sent.

Does it summarise the thread?

The alert carries the title, relevance, sentiment and a reply hint rather than a summary. Opening it in FishOut shows the thread and a drafted reply.

Can my co-founder get the same alerts?

Put the bot in a group you both read, or create a second channel to their chat with its own floor.

Integrations TelegramHacker News

Hacker News alerts in Telegram

A founder’s Telegram is the one place an alert definitely gets seen, which is exactly why it should only get the Hacker News threads that need you today. FishOut sends them through your own bot, in a group or a forum topic, and keeps the rest in the inbox.

Start free The Telegram guide

Checked hourly; every 15 minutes for Fast keywords on paid plans. Telegram alerts are on every plan.

[01] WHAT ARRIVES/ TELEGRAM MESSAGE

A Hacker News post, in Telegram

A complaint about your pricing on HN, Reply, carefully: answer it with help, not a pitch, and from your own account.

Acme founders · group

@AcmeFishOutBotnow

Reply, carefully: a relevant post on Hacker News

AcmeMail’s new pricing is a 40% jump for teams of three

Relevance 90 · Brand · Negative · by dmarlow

Hint: Lead with help, don't pitch

Labels: Complaint

Open in FishOut

[02] WHAT GETS FILTERED/ NOISE

What never reaches Telegram

2 Hacker News matches that go to Filtered instead, each with its reason.

Filtered · Hacker News

Comment · item 41883955Hacker News

Our stack: Postgres, AcmeMail, a lot of cron

Filtered · Below threshold

A passing mention in a stack list is real, but not worth a phone buzz.

Story · item 41884002Hacker News

Acme Corp quarterly results

Filtered · Different meaning

A shared word in a company name, nothing to do with you.

[03] KEYWORDS THAT WORK HERE/ HACKER NEWS

For Hacker News, into Telegram

More keyword shapes are on monitoring Hacker News.

Your name, marked Fast

On a paid plan a Fast keyword is checked every 15 minutes on HN. For the one keyword that goes to your phone, that is the setting worth spending.

Complaint-shaped phrases: your name + “pricing”, “down”, “moved off”

The HN posts a founder must see within the hour are the critical ones; praise can wait for the Daily brief.

A floor of 85

A phone is the most expensive interruption you have. At 85 only posts that are clearly about you and worth a reply get through.

Settings · Notifications

Hacker News → a chat or group

Healthy

Relevance floor85

Eventsmention.scored

Batch bursts5 min

[04] SET IT UP/ 4 STEPS

Four steps, about five minutes

Hacker News into Telegram, start to finish.

1
Create a bot with BotFather
Walkthrough on the Telegram guide.
2
Paste it under Settings → Notifications → Telegram
Then send a test.
3
Add Hacker News keywords under Keywords
Start with: Your name, marked Fast.
4
Floor 85, mention.scored
Batching stays on.

A forum topic for HN alone

If your group has topics turned on, add message_thread_id to the URL and HN alerts land in their own topic, away from the rest of the group.

destination

https://api.telegram.org/bot<token>/sendMessage?chat_id=-100…&message_thread_id=42

[05] A BUSY DAY/ DIGEST

When Hacker News gets loud

Telegram allows a bot about 20 messages a minute in a group. A front-page thread can clear that on its own, so batching is not a nicety here: it keeps a launch day to two messages on your phone rather than a throttled queue.

Acme founders · group · 5-min digest

@AcmeFishOutBot+5m

Spike: “acmemail pricing” — 19 posts today, usually 2 · 3 new mentions for AcmeMail

AcmeMail raised prices for small teams again · Hacker News · 93
Moving our team off AcmeMail: a postmortem · Hacker News · 89
Is per-seat pricing dead for support tools? · Hacker News · 78

Open in FishOut

[06] THE RECIPE YOU WOULD OTHERWISE BUILD/ DIY

flows.network “Hacker News Alert” for Telegram

An hourly function takes the previous hour of HN posts, keeps those containing one keyword, has ChatGPT summarise them and sends the result to a Telegram chat.