The project vendors TDLib automatically by default. If you already have TDLib installed with CMake package metadata, configure with -DTELEGRAM_TUI_USE_SYSTEM_TDLIB=ON.

Build

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build -j

During configure, CMake also checks the app config at $XDG_DATA_HOME/telegram-tui/config.json or ~/.local/share/telegram-tui/config.json. If that file contains api_id and api_hash, they are embedded into the build.

Run

Create a Telegram application at https://my.telegram.org/apps, then either rely on the embedded credentials from the app config above, or export credentials:

export TELEGRAM_API_ID=123456
export TELEGRAM_API_HASH=0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef
./build/telegram-tui

Or start the app without env vars and enter them interactively when prompted. When entered in the TUI, the app now stores api_id and api_hash in ~/.local/share/telegram-tui/config.json and reuses them on later launches.

To use Telegram test servers instead of production:

export TELEGRAM_USE_TEST_DC=1
./build/telegram-tui

The client stores TDLib state in ~/.local/share/telegram-tui/tdlib for production and ~/.local/share/telegram-tui/test/tdlib for test mode.

Gitea Actions

The repository includes .gitea/workflows/build-tdlib.yaml, which builds the latest upstream TDLib tag on Gitea Actions and publishes a bundled TDLib archive plus checksum to the Gitea Generic Package Registry under the tdlib package. It also refreshes a latest/tdlib-latest.json manifest with the newest published version.

Keys

Up / Down: move selection
Tab: switch focus between chats and messages
Enter: open the selected chat
i: start composing a message
PgUp / PgDn: scroll the current message view
r: reload chats or history
Esc: cancel current input
q: quit

Releases 2

v0.1.2 Latest

2026-04-26 10:01:54 +00:00

Languages

C++ 96.8%

CMake 2.9%

Shell 0.3%