telegram-bridge

claude-channels-workaround

A community marketplace of Claude Code plugins that work around the missing --channels feature.

The Problem

Claude Code v2.1.80+ introduced a --channels flag that enables remote control via messaging platforms like Telegram. But most users on API-based subscriptions hit this wall:

Channels are not currently available

This is a server-side feature flag that Anthropic has not rolled out broadly. The community is tracking it here:

• Issue #36503 — "Channels are not currently available"
• Issue #37071 — Telegram channel not working for API users

Until the official flag ships for everyone, this marketplace provides platform-specific workarounds that bypass the channels system entirely.

Available Plugins

Plugin	Platform	Description
telegram-bridge	Telegram	Polls the Telegram Bot API and pipes messages to claude --print

Install

claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/StavPartouche/claude-channels-workaround
claude plugin install telegram-bridge@claude-channels-workaround

Then run /telegram-bridge:setup in Claude Code — it walks you through everything.

Contributing

Want to add a workaround for another platform (Discord, Slack, WhatsApp...)? PRs are very welcome.

How to add a new platform plugin

1. Fork this repo
2. Create a new directory under plugins/ — e.g. plugins/discord-bridge/
3. Follow this structure:

plugins/your-platform-bridge/
├── .claude-plugin/
│   └── plugin.json        # name, version, description, author
├── commands/
│   ├── setup.md           # guided first-time setup
│   ├── start.md           # start the bridge
│   ├── status.md          # check if running
│   ├── logs.md            # view logs
│   └── kill.md            # stop the bridge
├── scripts/
│   ├── bridge.sh          # the polling/bridge script
│   └── start.sh           # session manager (tmux or similar)
└── README.md              # explain the platform, credit sources, link issues

4. Register your plugin in .claude-plugin/marketplace.json by adding an entry to the plugins array:

{
  "name": "your-platform-bridge",
  "source": "./plugins/your-platform-bridge",
  "description": "One-line description"
}

5. Open a PR with a clear description of the platform and how your bridge works.

Guidelines

• Credit your sources — if your bridge is based on someone else's gist, script, or idea, link to them prominently in your README
• Security first — bot tokens and credentials must be stored in .env files with chmod 600, never logged or committed
• Setup command is mandatory — every plugin must have a setup.md that guides a first-time user through the full process
• No external dependencies beyond curl and jq — keep it simple; no Node.js, Python, or package managers required unless absolutely necessary

License

MIT