Here's something that trips people up: by default, Telegram bots in group chats only see messages that start with a /command or explicitly mention the bot. Want your assistant to respond to all messages in a group? Send /setprivacy to @BotFather and select "Disable."
You can also use the requireMention flag in telegram.json. Set it to true and the bot only responds when someone @-mentions it, even in private chats. This is useful if you run multiple bots in a shared group.
Pairing codes let you authorize specific group chats from the Control UI instead of auto-approving each group the bot joins. Think of it as a whitelist for where your assistant shows up.