Status commands unblocked in busy Telegram chats
Telegram status commands like /status, /help, and /commands now respond instantly even when a chat has an in-flight conversation turn—without breaking reply ordering for regular messages.
Telegram users who rely on slash commands for quick status checks hit a frustrating delay: when a bot was busy processing a long conversation turn, even simple commands like /help or /status had to wait in line behind it. Status commands were serialized onto the same lane as regular messages, so they got stuck waiting their turn like any ordinary message.
A change to the Telegram extension's sequentializer now routes read-only status commands onto a separate control lane. Commands categorized as "status" in the command registry—including /status, /help, /commands, and their aliases—now execute immediately on request, bypassing any active turn in that chat or topic. Regular messages still serialize correctly through the per-chat lane, maintaining conversation order.
One exception was made intentionally: the /export-session command stays on the normal lane because it writes session state to disk and could corrupt an in-flight turn if it interleaved. The change is limited to read-only status commands to avoid session-mutation races.
The fix applies to the Telegram extension in the extensions/telegram package, targeting users who run multi-turn conversations in group chats or threaded topics.
View Original GitHub Description
Summary
- route Telegram status-category slash commands (
/status,/help,/commands, and similar read-only status commands) onto the existing control sequentializer lane - keep ordinary Telegram messages on the existing per-chat/per-topic lane so streaming and reply ordering stay serialized
- add regression coverage for a busy topic plus
/statusbypass, and for normal same-topic message serialization
Root cause
Telegram's inbound updates are sequentialized before native command dispatch. /status was using the same per-chat/per-topic lane as ordinary conversation messages, so a busy in-flight turn blocked the command until that lane drained.
Design
- classify status-category slash commands in
extensions/telegram/src/sequential-key.tsusing the existing shared command registry - map only those status commands to
telegram:<chatId>:control, reusing the same bypass pattern already used for fast control handling - leave ordinary messages,
/btw, approval callbacks, and mutating slash commands on their existing lanes
Before
A /status command sent into a busy Telegram chat/topic waited behind the active conversation turn.
After
/status, /help, /commands, and other status-category slash commands respond immediately even when the current Telegram chat/topic already has an in-flight turn, while ordinary same-topic messages still serialize in order.
Risks
The bypassed commands can now interleave visibly with an in-flight topic turn. That is intentional, but the change stays limited to read-only/status commands to avoid broad session-mutation races.
Validation
pnpm test extensions/telegram/src/sequential-key.test.ts extensions/telegram/src/bot.create-telegram-bot.test.tspnpm build