Channel

When to use this

Use it to size up or track a channel: subscribers is exact, straight from the channel's t.me page. counters (photos, videos, files, links) are rounded by Telegram.

Channels that turned their web preview off still return their name, bio and subscribers, with previewEnabled: false and counters: null; their posts can't be read.

Unknown usernames, and usernames that belong to a person, bot or group, return 404 not_found.

Parameters

All parameters go in the query string.

Example request

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your key, or set LURKAPI_KEY for the code. Get a free key.

curl "https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/telegram/channel?handle=telegram" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

const params = new URLSearchParams({
  handle: "telegram",
});
const res = await fetch(`https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/telegram/channel?${params}`, {
  headers: { "x-api-key": process.env.LURKAPI_KEY },
});
const data = await res.json();
if (!data.success) throw new Error(`${data.code}: ${data.error}`);
console.log(data);

import os
import requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/telegram/channel",
    params={
        "handle": "telegram",
    },
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["LURKAPI_KEY"]},
    timeout=60,
)
data = res.json()
if not data["success"]:
    raise RuntimeError(f"{data['code']}: {data['error']}")
print(data)

Example response

A real response from this endpoint, captured from the live API and trimmed to a couple of items. Strings over 96 characters (mostly signed media URLs) are cut short and end in ….

{
  "success": true,
  "credits_remaining": 999968,
  "credits_charged": 1,
  "username": "telegram",
  "title": "Telegram News",
  "description": "The official Telegram on Telegram. Much recursion. Very Telegram. Wow.",
  "photoUrl": "https://cdn1.telesco.pe/file/RVgtx-SeGUFdb1FvECn6bWCxrbnYjx6wIA-zmZ9aUbT…",
  "verified": true,
  "subscribers": 9432976,
  "counters": {
    "photos": 16,
    "videos": 228,
    "files": null,
    "links": 378
  },
  "previewEnabled": true,
  "url": "https://t.me/telegram"
}

Response fields

Every field of a successful response. [] marks a list: a[].b is the b of each item in a. nullable fields can be null; optional fields can be missing.

Caching and freshness

Responses are cached for up to 1 hour, so a repeat call within that window can return the same data. It still costs 1 credit.

Errors

Errors return { success: false, error, code, docs } with the HTTP status below. Validation errors, 401/402/429 rejections and 5xx failures are free; not_found is charged (how charging works). All error codes.

Use it in Claude

Once LurkAPI is connected to Claude, this endpoint is the telegram_channel tool. Ask in plain English, for example:

Use LurkAPI's telegram_channel with handle "telegram" and summarize what you find.

Claude calls telegram_channel with arguments like these, and each call costs 1 credit:

{
  "handle": "telegram"
}

Tool results skip nulls and empty lists to save tokens.