profiles - WireCatLabs/tg-cli GitHub Wiki

Profiles and bots

A profile is a name for one login of tg on this computer: a Telegram account or a bot, with its own session and its own settings. tg never picks one for you: a command that uses an account names its profile as the first word (tg personal chats list), through TG_PROFILE, or through default_profile in the config file. With one account, set default_profile once and forget it.

Read this page when you want a second account, want your AI agent to have fewer rights than you, or want to run a bot. At the end you know how to pick a profile for a command, how to give it its own settings, and how to switch to a bot.

What profiles let you do

You want to How
Use two Telegram accounts on one computer Log in once per profile: tg work session start
Give your agent fewer rights than you have A profile with its own permissions
Keep an agent on that one profile TG_PROFILE_LOCK (profiles in login and sessions)
Run a Telegram bot next to your account A bot profile: tg support bot api get-me
See every profile on this computer tg account list

Choose a profile

Put the profile name before the command:

tg work config show

tg account list shows every profile on this computer and the account each is logged in as; tg work session end logs the profile work out.

A setting under profiles.work in the config file applies to that profile; values under defaults apply when it has no value of its own. The rules for profile names, and the order in which tg picks a profile, are in profiles in login and sessions.

Profiles are not separate operating-system users: an agent with unrestricted file access can still reach other data on that computer.

Switch to a bot

Put bot after the profile name:

tg support bot api get-me --json

These commands need a bot profile that is already connected. The bot's account and rights come from Telegram, not from your personal account. A Telegram bot explains how to connect a bot, with examples.

Settings and access