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Telegram messages show raw Markdown instead of formatted text #24
Description
Problem
Messages sent to Telegram show raw Markdown syntax instead of rendered formatting. Bold text shows as **text**, and links show as [text](url) instead of being clickable.
Example output in Telegram
Right now in **Antwerp**, the temperature is approximately **6°C (43°F)**, with a feels-like temperature of around **4°C**. There are brief showers occurring in the area, and conditions are quite chilly and wintry. Humidity is high at around 93%.
Sources:
- [Weather Today - Antwerp, Belgium (Weather Atlas)](https://www.weather-atlas.com/en/belgium/antwerp)
- [Antwerp Current Weather (AccuWeather)](https://www.accuweather.com/en/be/antwerp/27046/current-weather/27046)
- [BBC Weather - Antwerp](https://www.bbc.com/weather/2803138)
Expected
Bold text should be rendered as bold, and links should be clickable.
Notes
The AI model outputs standard Markdown (**bold**, [text](url)), but Telegram requires either:
- Markdown v1 parse mode — natively supports
*bold*,_italic_,`code`, and[links](url). Only needs**bold**→*bold*conversion. - HTML parse mode — needs Markdown → HTML conversion.
- MarkdownV2 parse mode — requires escaping all special characters, which conflicts with the AI's standard Markdown output.
Markdown v1 is likely the simplest option.
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Mohammedamaan5714 commentedon Mar 23, 2026
Proposal to fix Markdown rendering issues using HTML ParseMode
Hi @iNicholasBE ,
I would like to work on this issue.
Proposed Solution:
Instead of using MarkdownV2 (which is highly sensitive to special character escaping and prone to errors with AI-generated text), I propose converting the AI's Markdown output to HTML before sending it to the Telegram API.
Implementation Details:
Library: Use commonmark-java within the Gradle build to handle the conversion efficiently.
Formatting Logic: Implement a utility service to map standard Markdown tags (**, ) to Telegram-compatible HTML tags (, ).
API Update: Set the parse_mode to HTML in the outgoing SendMessage payload.
This approach is more robust than regex-based string replacement and ensures that links and bold text render correctly across all Telegram clients.
Could you please assign this issue to me? I can have a PR ready shortly.
rdehuyss commentedon Mar 23, 2026
Hi @Mohammedamaan5714 - sounds like a good plan!
Markdown to html is indeed also my preferred solution.
Mohammedamaan5714 commentedon Mar 26, 2026
Hi @rdehuyss,
I’ve implemented the Markdown → HTML conversion using CommonMark and integrated it with Telegram’s HTML parse mode.
I also added a unit test (formatsMarkdownToHtmlAndSetsParseMode) to verify that Markdown is correctly transformed into Telegram-compatible HTML.
The test is passing locally. However, for full end-to-end validation with actual bot responses, I would need an OpenAI API key, which I currently don’t have.
Please let me know if you’d like me to validate this in any other way or make further improvements.
iNicholasBE commentedon Mar 26, 2026
Hi @Mohammedamaan5714 , can you make a pull request? Thanks for your contribution!
Can you make a pull request? Then we can check your code and validate it in a real environment!
Mohammedamaan5714 commentedon Mar 26, 2026
Hi @rdehuyss, I have opened a PR for this. Please review when you get time.
rdehuyss commentedon Mar 26, 2026
Will do! Probably for somewhere end of today. Thx!
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