Channels

#What are channels?

Channels connect messaging platforms to your Ninetrix agents. Users message your bot on Telegram, WhatsApp, or Discord, and your agent processes and responds to those messages automatically. No custom webhook code, no polling logic — just connect a bot and add a trigger to your agentfile.yaml.

#Supported platforms

#Quick start

ninetrix channel connect telegram

triggers:
  - type: channel
    channels: ["telegram"]

ninetrix run

#Setting up Telegram

1. Open Telegram and message @BotFather
2. Send /newbot and follow the prompts to create a bot and get your token
3. Run ninetrix channel connect telegram
4. Enter the bot token when prompted
5. Send /start to your bot in Telegram to verify the connection
6. The bot is verified and ready to use

#Setting up Discord

1. Go to discord.com/developers/applications and create a new application
2. Navigate to Bot in the sidebar and click Add Bot
3. Copy the bot token
4. Run ninetrix channel connect discord
5. Enter the token when prompted
6. Open the OAuth2 URL provided by the CLI to add the bot to your server

#Setting up WhatsApp

1. Ensure Node.js is installed (node --version)
2. Run ninetrix channel connect whatsapp
3. Scan the QR code displayed in your terminal with WhatsApp > Linked Devices > Link a Device
4. Wait for verification to complete

#agentfile.yaml configuration

The channel trigger supports several options for controlling behavior:

triggers:
  - type: channel
    channels: ["telegram", "discord"]
    bot: "support_bot"           # optional: specific bot name
    session_mode: per_chat       # per_chat (default) | per_message
    verbose: true                # print channel I/O to console
    allowed_ids: ["123456789"]   # optional: allowlist user/chat IDs
    reject_message: "Not authorized"  # message for blocked users

#Session modes

#Named bots

You can connect multiple bots of the same platform type. Use the --bot flag to name them:

ninetrix channel connect telegram --bot support_bot
ninetrix channel connect telegram --bot sales_bot

Then reference a specific bot in your trigger:

triggers:
  - type: channel
    channels: ["telegram"]
    bot: "support_bot"

#Access control

Restrict who can interact with your bot using allowed_ids. Messages from other users receive the reject_message:

triggers:
  - type: channel
    channels: ["telegram"]
    allowed_ids: ["123456789", "987654321"]
    reject_message: "Sorry, this bot is private."

#How it works

#Local mode

1. ninetrix run injects bot configs into the container as environment variables
2. ChannelManager starts adapters inside the container (Telegram long-polling, Discord WebSocket, WhatsApp Baileys bridge)
3. Inbound messages are received by the adapter and forwarded via HTTP POST to the container's /chat endpoint
4. The agent processes the message and returns a response
5. The response is sent back to the user through the adapter

#Cloud mode

In Ninetrix Cloud, Telegram uses webhooks instead of long-polling. The webhook URL points to the saas-api, which routes messages to the correct Fly machine running your agent.

#Channel config storage

Channel configurations (bot tokens, chat IDs) are stored in ~/.agentfile/channels.yaml with chmod 600 permissions. This file is never committed to git.

The CLI and dashboard perform bidirectional sync — changes in either place are synced when you run ninetrix run or ninetrix channel status.

#Environment variables

These environment variables are auto-injected into the container when a channel trigger is configured. You do not need to set them manually: