Telegram commands
Pepper's Telegram bot understands slash commands, plain messages, replies to a brief (the numbered update Pepper sends you three times a day), voice notes, photos, forwarded messages and buttons.
The bot listens only to you, in your private chat with it. Anyone else, and any group, is ignored without a reply. Edited messages are ignored too, so send a correction as a new message.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/start, /help | Show what you can send and the list of commands |
/brief | Sends a brief now, with the usual buttons |
/tasks | Your to-dos, numbered so you can reply to them |
/priorities | Your priorities in order, each with its next move |
/new | Starts a fresh conversation |
/sync | Pulls new data from every configured, unpaused source now and says how many items came in |
/status | Counts, each connected account, and the last good sync |
/cost | Spending on the model today and this month, against the daily and monthly caps in your settings |
/routines | The state of each of your routines, the jobs you've scheduled |
/halt | Pauses Pepper: briefs, extraction and nudges stop, questions get "Paused (/resume to continue).", callers hear that Pepper is paused. New messages are still stored, and routines and the backlog offer keep running |
/resume | Turns Pepper back on |
/forget <name or id> | Shows what would be deleted about that person, with Forget permanently and Cancel |
/people | Up to 25 people, VIPs first, then by messages in the last 30 days; ★ marks a VIP |
/vip <name or id> | Marks a person as a VIP on every network where the name matches: a ★ in briefs, first in the backlog offer |
/unvip <name or id> | Returns a VIP to normal |
/chats | Your 25 most recent chats with their ids and whether each is normal, muted or ignored |
/mute <chat_id> | Summary-only: the chat still appears in summaries, but never as "needs reply" unless you are @mentioned, and no new to-dos for you come from it |
/ignore <chat_id> | Drops the chat from search, summaries and new to-dos. Messages already stored and existing to-dos stay |
/normal <chat_id> | Undoes /mute or /ignore |
/digest [hours] | The older format: a full summary of every conversation in the last 12 hours, or the hours you name |
An unknown command gets no reply. When the name you type matches more than one full name, /vip and /unvip
list the matches and ask for an id. The /forget preview includes every match, so read it.
/forget cannot be undone, and nothing is deleted from your apps. What it deletes, and what stays, is in
Forgetting someone.
Type anything that is not a command: "what did Sam Lee say about the lease?" or "who is waiting on me?". Pepper
searches the chats you connect and, when it has verified sources, ends the answer with up to four of them, like
sources: Sam Lee, Lease. Follow-ups build on the conversation until you send /new or it goes quiet for a
while.
Say what you need to do: "remind me to call the dentist Thursday", or several things at once. Pepper saves each one, confirms in one line, lists it under Yours in briefs, and asks "Did you…?" in the evening brief when it is due. If a message turns out not to be a task, Pepper answers it as a question.
- Start with
todo:to always save it, even when the AI model can't be reached. - Reply to the confirmation with
2 is about Lena Parkto change who item 2 is about. priority: Close the Q4 budget; next: send Mira Chen the draftadds a priority with its next move. Reorder or finish priorities on the dashboard.
Reply to a brief, a to-do confirmation, a nudge or /tasks with a word like done or tomorrow, and Pepper
updates that item. Put the item number before or after the word; for a date, put the number first. When the
message has one item, the word alone is enough. You can reply to a confirmation or /tasks list for 24 hours,
and to a nudge for 48; after that, send /tasks again.
| Reply | What happens |
|---|---|
2 done | Done. Also did it, sent, paid, booked, called, handled |
2 tomorrow | Snoozed a day. Also snooze, later |
2 next week | Your own to-do moves to next Monday; one Pepper found is snoozed a week |
3 friday | Moved to that date. 3 oct 30 at 3pm works too |
1 not yet | Stays open. Also no, still open, working on it |
drop 2 | Not a task; it won't come back. Also wrong, never mind, remove |
2 keep | Kept with no date |
After two not yet answers, Pepper asks once whether to keep it, set a date for it or drop it, then stops asking.
Send a voice note instead of typing. Pepper turns it into text on the Mac that runs it (or at OpenAI, if you
chose that for speech), shows Heard: "…", then treats it as a question or a to-do. Commands, priorities and
numbered replies need text. It replies to a question with a voice note when you ask by voice. To change how
fast it talks, send speed 1.4x (0.8 to 1.8), faster, slower or normal speed.
Send a photo or image file (JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP, up to 5 MB). The caption is your question, and Pepper sends the image and caption to Anthropic. With no caption, Pepper describes it; for a screenshot of a chat, it says who it is from and what you owe or are owed. PDFs, other files, stickers, videos and locations get a reply saying Pepper can't read them yet.
Forward a message, voice note or photo, and Pepper sums up what matters and anything you need to do. Forwarded
content is someone else's words. Pepper never treats it as a command or saves it as a to-do, even if it says
/halt.
Once a day at most, when unread threads older than two days pile up, Pepper offers a time to clear them, with buttons to accept or skip; 15:30 below is an example.
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| 🔊 Listen, under a brief | Reads the brief aloud |
2 ✓, 2 ⏰, 2 ✖, under a brief | Item 2 done, snoozed a day, or not a task |
| Yes, 15:30 | Books time to clear old unread threads; Pepper reminds you then and reports what you cleared |
| Not today | Skips the backlog offer for today |
| Forget permanently, Cancel | Confirms or cancels /forget |
Each button works once, except Listen. If you press an old button, Pepper replies "No longer pending."
- Briefs at 07:00, 13:00 and 19:00, or the times in
PEPPER_DIGEST_TIMES. - One nudge when each to-do is due (a brief that just listed it counts), and at most one backlog offer a day, never during your quiet hours (22:00 to 07:00 unless you change them).
- A weekly review on Sunday at 09:00.
- A note when a scheduled brief fails. Routines that fail or need your attention appear as a line in the brief.
- With the phone line on: a message when someone says your passphrase on a call, messages callers leave, and tasks added during your calls.
Your first week with Pepper
By the end of Install Pepper, whether you use the guided setup or do it by hand, Pepper has pulled your messages once and passed npm run doctor, and launchd, the part of macOS that keeps programs…
Briefs
Three times a day Pepper sends you a short brief on Telegram: what to start with, what needs you, and what got done since the last one.