Why does my Telegram post fail with a permissions error?

The connected account is the bot, and the bot must be an admin of the target chat/channel with "Post Messages" rights — adding the bot as a member isn't enough. Grant admin rights in Telegram's own channel settings first.

Can one connected bot post to more than one channel?

Yes — `chatId` is set per post (per variant override), not per connected account, so one bot account can post to any channel it's an admin of by changing `chatId` on each request.

Telegram Bot API: send a message to a channel

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6 min read

Before you publish#

You need one already-connected account for the platform. Connect it yourself in the Agency Console, or — if a client owns the account — mint a self-serve connect link with POST /clients/:id/connect-invites and send it to them; they authorize from that page without ever getting a SkedCast login.

GET /v1/accounts lists what's connected, with each account's id — that id is what you pass in targets.accountIds below.

Compose and schedule#

bash

curl -X POST https://api.skedcast.com/v1/posts \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sked_live_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "clientId": "<clientId>",
    "content": "Launch day is here 🚀",
    "mediaIds": ["<mediaAssetId>"],
    "targets": { "mode": "selection", "accountIds": ["<telegramAccountId>"] },
    "schedule": { "type": "at", "scheduledAt": "2026-07-01T15:00:00Z" }
  }'

A minimal telegram post, scheduled for a specific time.

The Telegram Bot API fields to send a message to a channel#

Everything platform-specific goes in one variants entry with "platform": "telegram" and an overrides object. The adapter reads only the keys it declares (below) and ignores the rest — send telegram keys on a telegram variant, nothing more.

Field	Type	Values / default	Notes
`chatId`	string — Required	—	The destination chat/channel id (or `@channel`). The bot must be an admin with "Post Messages" rights.
`parseMode`	enum	`MarkdownV2` \\| `HTML` \\| `Markdown`	How the message text is parsed.
`disableNotification`	boolean	`false`	Post without a notification sound.
`protectContent`	boolean	`false`	Prevent forwarding and saving.
`firstComment`	string	—	Posted as a reply to the published message in the same chat. Posted right after publish. Best-effort: a failed comment never fails the post and is not reported, so verify on the published post.

Verbatim from the REST API reference's Telegram table.

With the platform-specific overrides#

json

{
  "clientId": "<clientId>",
  "content": "*New release* is live.",
  "mediaIds": [],
  "targets": { "mode": "selection", "accountIds": ["<telegramBotAccountId>"] },
  "variants": [
    { "platform": "telegram", "overrides": { "chatId": "@your_channel", "parseMode": "MarkdownV2" } }
  ],
  "schedule": { "type": "at", "scheduledAt": "2026-07-01T15:00:00Z" }
}

The same POST /posts body, with a variants entry added.

Checking the result#

Publishing fans out into one post target per account. GET /post-targets/:id (or GET /posts/:id) reports status, plus externalId (telegram's own post id) and permalink (its public URL) once published. Subscribe to the target.published / target.failed webhooks instead of polling if you can accept inbound HTTP — see the webhooks guide.

telegramapipublish

FAQ

Why does my Telegram post fail with a permissions error?: The connected account is the bot, and the bot must be an admin of the target chat/channel with "Post Messages" rights — adding the bot as a member isn't enough. Grant admin rights in Telegram's own channel settings first.
Can one connected bot post to more than one channel?: Yes — `chatId` is set per post (per variant override), not per connected account, so one bot account can post to any channel it's an admin of by changing `chatId` on each request.

How to send a message to a Telegram channel with the Bot API