Telegram webhook: what it is and how it works

A webhook is an automatic notice: when something happens in a system, it sends an HTTP request to an address you chose. Instead of you asking “anything new?” over and over, the system tells you when there is.

Webhooks in a Telegram bot

The Bot API gives a bot two ways to receive what happens to it, such as a new message or a button tap:

• getUpdates: your program polls Telegram for news.
• Webhook: you set a URL with the setWebhook method, and Telegram sends an HTTPS POST request to it for each update.

The two are mutually exclusive: while a webhook is set, getUpdates doesn’t work. That’s why connecting one bot to two programs tends to cause trouble.

Telegram’s webhooks require HTTPS and only accept ports 443, 80, 88 and 8443. If you code your own bot, the official FAQ has the certificate details.

Do I need to touch this in Flow4You?

No. You paste the bot’s token and build the flow in the editor, with none of this to configure.

A webhook also isn’t the same as the external request block (“Consulta Externa”), even though both use HTTP. A webhook is someone notifying you. The external request is the flow going out to ask: it calls another system and stores the response in a variable. It’s for teams with someone technical who want, for example, to notify their own system during the conversation or show a value from it in a message. We cover its limits in our Telegram bot builder guide.