In April 2026, Anthropic cut off third-party harnesses from Claude subscriptions. OpenClaw and similar tools stopped working overnight. Metis Gateway is the open-source alternative — a Telegram gateway that routes through the CLI your subscription already covers.
# Clone and configure $ git clone https://github.com/Kenny1338/claude-telegram-gateway.git $ cd claude-telegram-gateway $ cp .env.example .env && nano .env # Install and run $ pip install -r requirements.txt $ python gateway.py
Features
A single Python file that turns your existing Claude subscription into a persistent Telegram assistant.
Claude remembers context across messages. Resume conversations seamlessly with session persistence and automatic context management.
Cron jobs, intervals, one-shot timers. Claude can self-manage its own scheduled tasks through a simple YAML config.
Send voice messages transcribed via Whisper. Get spoken responses through ElevenLabs TTS. Full voice conversation support.
Send photos, documents, and videos directly through Telegram. Claude processes and responds with files when needed.
Monitor usage per-day and per-session. Set limits, get alerts, and stay in control of your subscription usage.
Built-in HTTP API for monitoring, health checks, and dashboard integration. Full observability out of the box.
How it works
Send a text, voice note, or file to your personal Telegram bot. The gateway picks it up instantly.
→The daemon runs claude -p --resume <session> with your message. No API key needed.
Claude's reply is chunked and sent back to Telegram in real-time. Markdown formatting preserved.
Why this works: Anthropic's policy change blocked third-party harnesses from using Claude subscriptions — but the official CLI (claude -p) is still covered. This gateway routes everything through it. No API key, no per-token billing, no TOS gray areas.
Architecture
A lightweight Python daemon. No database. No message queue. No complexity tax.
Request → Process → Respond. No intermediaries.
Born from necessity
In April 2026, Anthropic announced that Claude subscriptions would no longer cover third-party harnesses. Thousands of developers who had built always-on assistants with tools like OpenClaw were left without alternatives. The API costs extra. The Agent SDK costs extra. But the CLI is still included — so we built a gateway that uses it.