Choose your first channel

Hub: pick a quickstart—Telegram, WhatsApp, or Discord—then pair and test

Page scope: This hub helps you pick a channel and points to the right walkthrough. BotFather steps, QR pairing, Discord bot creation, and Slack app tokens live on the dedicated quickstarts—not here. Need an always-on Gateway? Start with VPS hosting or managed hosting.

Estimated time per channel: 10–15 minutes. Prerequisites below apply to all three.

Channel quickstarts (canonical setup guides)

Telegram bot quickstart — BotFather token, config, test
WhatsApp quickstart — QR pairing, gateway
Discord bot quickstart — application, intents, invite
Slack bot quickstart — app, Socket Mode, workspace install
Microsoft Teams quickstart — Azure Bot, HTTPS endpoint

📚 Reference: For complete channel features, advanced configuration, and all platform options, see the Channels Reference Guide.

DMs and unknown senders: read Who can talk to your bot (pairing) so your channel policy matches how public the bot is. Phones or laptops reaching a home gateway: see Remote access.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:

OpenClaw installed and running - Complete the Getting Started Tutorial first
Gateway running - Your OpenClaw Gateway should be active
Telegram account (for this tutorial) - Or WhatsApp/Discord if you prefer
Access to terminal/command line
For a guided flow with token steps and merge-ready config, use the Setup Wizard (Add a channel)