Setting Up Telm

This guide walks you through adding Telm to a Telegram group, watching it work in safe observe-only mode, tuning your rules, and finally turning on active enforcement.

Step 1: Add the bot to your group

Open your group in Telegram, go to Manage Group > Administrators > Add Admin, and add @TelmBot. Telm needs the following admin permissions to moderate effectively:

• Delete messages — remove spam and rule-breaking content
• Ban users — remove and block known spammers
• Restrict members — mute users who trip a rate limit or filter

Telm never needs "Change group info" or "Add new admins", so leave those disabled. Once added, the bot introduces itself in the group and links the group to your dashboard.

Step 2: Watch it in Monitoring Mode

Every new group starts in Monitoring Mode — the bot observes and reports but never touches a message. This is the safest way to see exactly what Telm *would* do before it acts.

In the dashboard you'll see a live feed of shadow actions:

[MONITOR] would DELETE  message from @user4823  reason: CAS blocklist match
[MONITOR] would MUTE    message from @promo_acct reason: rate limit (12 msgs / 5s)
[MONITOR] would BAN     message from @spammer01  reason: AI spam score 0.97

Let it run for a few days on a busy group. Review the feed and confirm the actions match what you'd expect. This is where you catch false positives *before* real members are affected.

Step 3: Configure your rules

Telm uses three detection layers — hardcoded rules, a fast local classifier, and deep AI checks for uncertain cases — plus the global CAS anti-spam blocklist. On top of that you can add your own custom moderation rules from the dashboard:

• Blacklists — block words, phrases, or regex patterns
• Rate limits — cap how many messages a user can send in a time window
• Link filters — block or allow-list specific domains
• Content filters — restrict forwards, media, or new-account posting

rules:
  - type: rate_limit
    max_messages: 5
    window_seconds: 10
    action: mute
  - type: link_filter
    mode: allowlist
    domains: ["keepflow.ai", "telm.com"]
    action: delete

Adjust thresholds based on what you saw in Monitoring Mode. Stricter isn't always better — the feed tells you where the real noise is.

Step 4: Enable enforcement

When the shadow feed looks right, switch the group from Monitoring Mode to Active in the dashboard. From this point Telm applies the exact actions you were previewing — deleting spam, muting rate-limit offenders, and banning CAS-listed and high-confidence spam accounts in real time.

Enforcement takes effect immediately and needs no restart. If anything looks off, flip back to Monitoring Mode at any time; your rules are preserved.

Step 5: Use the dashboard

The dashboard is your live control center over WebSockets:

• Activity — daily message and member stats and activity heatmaps
• Leaderboards — top members by messages, XP, and reputation
• Moderation log — every action taken, with the triggering reason
• Multi-group — manage all your groups from one place, and enable Support Mode for help-desk communities

Review the moderation log weekly and refine your rules as your community grows.