tgden — Telegram catalog as an MCP server + free API

A live index of what exists on Telegram: 1.2M+ channels, 245k+ group chats, 160k+ bots, 4.9M+ indexed posts. No Telegram account. No API key. No install. CORS enabled — it runs from a browser tab as happily as from a server.

• MCP endpoint — https://tgden.com/api/mcp
• REST API — https://tgden.com/api/catalog
• Human UI — tgden.com · Docs — tgden.com/en/api-docs

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Why another Telegram MCP server?

Every other Telegram MCP server connects to your Telegram account — you hand it an API hash, a phone number or a bot token, and it reads your dialogs, sends your messages, manages your groups. Useful, but it can only ever see what you already have access to.

This one is the opposite. It's a public catalog, so it answers the question none of the others can:

"What Telegram channels and groups exist about X, and which are worth joining?"

	account-based Telegram MCP	tgden MCP
Credentials required	API ID/hash, phone or bot token	none
Install	local process (Python/Go/Node)	none — a hosted HTTP URL
Can see	chats you already joined	1.6M+ public entities you haven't
Answers "what exists?"	no	yes
Can act on your account	yes	no — read-only by design

Because it never touches an account, there's nothing to leak and nothing to get banned.

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Quick start

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http tgden https://tgden.com/api/mcp

Listed in the official MCP Registry as io.github.JustJuice55/telegram-catalog — clients that browse the registry find it under telegram.

Claude Desktop · Cursor · any MCP client — add to your MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tgden": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://tgden.com/api/mcp"
    }
  }
}

That's the entire setup: streamable HTTP transport, stateless, no auth handshake.

Check it by hand:

curl -s https://tgden.com/api/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}' | jq '.result.tools[].name'

Tools

Tool	What it answers
search_telegram	Full-text search across channels, group chats and bots — with subscriber/member counts, categories and trust scores.
best_channels_by_category	"Best Telegram channels for crypto / AI / news / gaming…" — ranked by subscribers.
channel_stats	Everything known about one channel, by @username.
search_posts	Full-text search over recent posts — what channels actually said, not just their bio.
market_listings	Real classified listings (rent, sale, services, jobs) parsed from regional Telegram groups across 🇦🇪 🇹🇷 🇹🇭 🇻🇳 🇬🇪 🇺🇸.
market_stats	Listing totals by country and type.

Resources

URI	Contents
tgden://catalog/top-channels	Top-100 channels by subscribers.
tgden://catalog/categories	Full category taxonomy with channel counts.
tgden://market/listings-latest	The 100 freshest marketplace listings.
tgden://market/stats	Marketplace totals by country and type.

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Free REST API (no key either)

Telegram has no official public search. Finding a channel, a live discussion group or a bot by topic means guessing usernames or trusting closed directories. If you don't speak MCP, the same catalog is plain HTTP.

GET /api/catalog — search

Param	Type	Default	Notes
q	string	—	Free-text query (title, username, topic)
limit	int	20	Max results to return
type	string	all	channel · chat · bot (omit for everything)

curl "https://tgden.com/api/catalog?q=crypto&type=channel&limit=3"

{
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "6ec0407a-4f5e-4a86-9154-f42481bc9413",
      "telegram_id": 2075341442,
      "username": "hamster_kombat",
      "title": "Hamster Kombat Announcement",
      "is_private": false,
      "avatar_url": "https://cdn4.telesco.pe/file/…"
    }
  ]
}

Call it from the browser

Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * is set on both read-only endpoints, so there is no proxy step: paste this into any page's devtools console (or a CodePen) and it answers.

const r = await fetch("https://tgden.com/api/catalog?q=crypto&type=channel&limit=3");
console.table((await r.json()).items);

Rate limit is shared and fair-use (~200 requests / 10s per IP). No key, no signup, no CORS proxy, no Access-Control-Allow-Credentials — nothing of yours is ever sent.

GET /api/suggest — instant autocomplete

Grouped, ranked suggestions as-you-type. Good for search boxes and agent tool-use.

curl "https://tgden.com/api/suggest?q=btc"

{
  "groups": [
    {
      "key": "chats",
      "label": { "en": "live chats", "ru": "живые чаты" },
      "items": [
        { "label": "BTC Times Discussion", "sub": "221 members",
          "href": "/en/chat/thebtctimes", "kind": "chat", "username": "thebtctimes" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Runnable examples: shell · Python · JavaScript.

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Limits — published, because hidden limits are worse than low ones

Surface	Limit
REST (/api/catalog, /api/suggest)	~200 requests / 10s per IP, shared fair-use
MCP (/api/mcp)	240 calls / hour per IP
Auth	none — no key, no signup, no email
Cost	free

Verified search-engine and AI crawlers are excluded from the shared limit.

We treat these as a contract: when they change, we announce it here and in the docs. No silent throttling. Need guaranteed throughput or a bulk export for something real? Open an issue, or reach us via @tgden_bot.

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About the data

Parsed continuously from Telegram's public surfaces — fresher than any LLM training set, which is most of the point of exposing it over MCP.

Channels	1,298,868
Group chats	282,719
Bots	157,909
Indexed posts	4,955,162
Marketplace listings	34,862

Census 06.08.2026. The MCP server reports these totals live, so what your agent sees is current — not whatever was true when this file was written.

Public data only: channels, groups and bots that are already publicly listed or linked. No private groups, no archives from closed communities, no personal data.

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Use cases

• Agent tool-use — give an agent real Telegram discovery in one config line.
• Research — map communities, track niches, study the open Telegram graph.
• Discovery bots — recommend channels and chats by topic.
• Market intel — what's being rented, sold and offered in regional Telegram economies.

Machine-readable site summary for AI crawlers: https://tgden.com/llms.txt

License

MIT — do what you want, no warranty. Data is public Telegram metadata.

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Maintained by tgden.com. Not affiliated with Telegram FZ-LLC. Indexes public t.me links only.