Telegram Bot API: Stickers, Custom Emoji, and Reactions

Purpose

Use this skill when the bot works with expressive content rather than plain text.

Core API surface

• sendSticker
• sticker-set retrieval and management methods
• custom emoji sticker lookup
• setMessageReaction
• reaction update families
• button and entity support for custom emoji

Sticker guidance

• Distinguish regular stickers, mask stickers, and custom emoji.
• Sticker set ownership matters for edit operations.
• Preserve sticker metadata such as emoji associations and keywords.
• Consider whether the bot needs creation flows or only send/reuse flows.

Custom emoji guidance

• Custom emoji appear in:
  • entities
  • buttons
  • sticker sets
  • emoji status and some profile surfaces
• Capability varies by context and premium requirements.

Reactions guidance

• Reaction handling can be either:
  • command-like feedback
  • analytics/engagement signal
  • moderation or ranking signal
• Bots must explicitly opt into some reaction-related updates and may need admin rights.
• Paid reactions are not available to bots in normal reaction-sending flows.

Common mistakes

• Assuming any sticker can be edited by any bot.
• Forgetting that custom emoji identifiers are not ordinary Unicode emoji.
• Ignoring chat-specific reaction availability rules.
• Treating reaction updates as immediate, strictly synchronous counters.

Read next

• 03-messages-and-formatting
• 16-stories-profile-and-engagement
• 21-schema-and-type-modeling