Bug Description

Hermes gateway fails to send messages to Telegram groups that have Topics enabled, even when the bot is an Admin and the chat ID is valid. The send_message tool returns a Message thread not found error.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a Telegram group and enable Topics.
2. Add Hermes bot to the group and make it an Admin.
3. Use the agent to send a message to the group via the send_message tool.

Expected Behavior

Hermes should be able to send messages to the default "General" topic, or allow the user to explicitly specify the Thread ID when targeting a chat.

Actual Behavior

The message fails to send with the following error:
Telegram send failed: Message thread not found

Note: Hermes can correctly list the Topics in the available targets (e.g., telegram:Group / topic 1), but fails to send the message despite the topic being visible.

Restart Required: Disabling Topics in the group settings does not immediately fix the issue. A full gateway restart (hermes gateway restart) and rejoining group is required to refresh the chat metadata.

• Reply vs Send: The bot works perfectly when replying to a message (mention), but fails when trying to send a new message independently.

Affected Component

Gateway (Telegram/Discord/Slack/WhatsApp)

Messaging Platform (if gateway-related)

Telegram

Debug Report

📋 Report: https://paste.rs/8vSXD
📋 agent.log: https://paste.rs/U7BNq
📋 gateway.log: https://paste.rs/IWb5V

Operating System

Ubuntu 24

Python Version

No response

Hermes Version

0.13.0

Additional Logs / Traceback (optional)

Root Cause Analysis (optional)

No response

Proposed Fix (optional)

Suggestion:

1. Add logic to automatically use message_thread_id=1 (General Topic) when sending to a group with Topics enabled.
2. Improve the documentation on how to correctly format targets for specific Threads/Topics in send_message.
3. Handle stale chat metadata more gracefully without requiring a full gateway restart.

Are you willing to submit a PR for this?

• I'd like to fix this myself and submit a PR