How To Send Trello Notifications To Telegram Group Topic Using PHP Webhooks

Trello is a great tool for task management, but its notification system is often limited when working with real-time team collaboration. If you’re already using Telegram for team discussions, wouldn’t it be great to get Trello notifications directly into a Telegram group topic?

In this guide, you’ll learn how to set up a Trello webhook that sends live updates (like card creation, movement, and comments) to your Telegram group using a PHP script.

🛠 What You’ll Learn

How to get your Trello API key and token
How to create a Telegram bot and get your group/topic IDs
How to set up a webhook to listen to Trello board activity
How to use a PHP script to forward notifications to Telegram

🔑 Step 1: Get Your Trello API Key, Secret, and Token

To interact with the Trello API, you’ll need an App Key and a Token.

🔗 Trello Power-Up Admin

Go to:
👉 https://trello.com/power-ups/admin

Click Create a new Power-Up
Name it and generate an App Key
Save your API Key and API Secret
Then go to this URL to generate your token:

https://trello.com/1/authorize?key=YOUR_API_KEY&name=TrelloToTelegram&expiration=never&response_type=token&scope=read,write

🧾 Step 2: Get Your Trello Board ID

You need the Board ID to create a webhook.

Find your board short link (e.g. https://trello.com/b/7G08MJrU/project-name)
Use this endpoint (replace key and token):

https://api.trello.com/1/boards/7G08MJrU?key=YOUR_API_KEY&token=YOUR_TOKEN

It returns JSON like:

jsonCopyEdit{
  "id": "63f8c1c1234567890abcdef1",
  "name": "Project Board",
  ...
}

JSON

Copy the id — that’s your full Board ID.

🤖 Step 3: Create a Telegram Bot & Get Topic ID

Go to @BotFather
Use /newbot to create a bot
Copy the bot token
Add the bot to your Telegram group and make it an admin
Enable topics in your group (Group Settings > Manage Topics)

Now send any message to your desired topic.

Get your topic ID (message_thread_id):

Visit https://api.telegram.org/botYOUR_BOT_TOKEN/getUpdates

Look for:

"message_thread_id": 1253

JSON

Save the topic ID and your group’s chat_id (like -1001842173606)

🧰 Step 4: Create the PHP Webhook Handler

Create a file like trello-to-telegram.php and upload it to your hosting.

Here’s a complete, production-ready script:

<?php
$telegramToken = 'YOUR_TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN';
$chatId = '-100YOUR_GROUP_ID';
$topicId = 1253; // Topic ID in Telegram

if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'GET' || $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'HEAD') {
    http_response_code(200);
    exit;
}

$input = file_get_contents('php://input');
$data = json_decode($input, true);

file_put_contents(__DIR__ . '/log.txt', date('Y-m-d H:i:s') . " " . $input . PHP_EOL, FILE_APPEND);

if (!isset($data['action'])) {
    http_response_code(400);
    echo 'Invalid webhook';
    exit;
}

$actionId = $data['action']['id'] ?? '';
$cacheFile = __DIR__ . '/actions_cache.txt';
$processed = file_exists($cacheFile) ? explode("\n", trim(file_get_contents($cacheFile))) : [];

if (in_array($actionId, $processed)) {
    http_response_code(200);
    exit;
}

file_put_contents($cacheFile, $actionId . "\n", FILE_APPEND);

$allowedActions = ['createCard', 'commentCard', 'updateCard'];
$action = $data['action'];
$actionType = $action['type'] ?? '';

if (!in_array($actionType, $allowedActions)) {
    http_response_code(200);
    exit;
}

$user = $action['memberCreator']['fullName'] ?? 'Someone';
$cardName = $action['data']['card']['name'] ?? '';
$cardShortLink = $action['data']['card']['shortLink'] ?? '';
$cardUrl = $cardShortLink ? "https://trello.com/c/$cardShortLink" : '';
$boardName = $action['data']['board']['name'] ?? '';
$message = "📋 *Board:* _{$boardName}_\n";

if ($actionType === 'createCard') {
    $message .= "🆕 *$user* created a card:\n*{$cardName}*";

} elseif ($actionType === 'commentCard') {
    $comment = $action['data']['text'] ?? '[No comment]';
    $commentUrl = $cardShortLink ? "https://trello.com/c/$cardShortLink#comment-{$actionId}" : '';
    $message .= "💬 *$user* commented on *{$cardName}*:\n\"{$comment}\"\n🔗 [View Comment]($commentUrl)";

} elseif ($actionType === 'updateCard') {
    $fromList = $action['data']['listBefore']['name'] ?? null;
    $toList = $action['data']['listAfter']['name'] ?? null;

    if ($fromList && $toList) {
        $message .= "🔄 *$user* moved *{$cardName}* from _{$fromList}_ to _{$toList}_";
    } else {
        $message .= "✏️ *$user* updated *{$cardName}*";
    }
}

if ($cardUrl) {
    $message .= "\n🔗 [View Card]($cardUrl)";
}

$sendUrl = "https://api.telegram.org/bot$telegramToken/sendMessage";
$params = [
    'chat_id' => $chatId,
    'message_thread_id' => $topicId,
    'text' => $message,
    'parse_mode' => 'Markdown',
];
$options = [
    'http' => [
        'header'  => "Content-type: application/json",
        'method'  => 'POST',
        'content' => json_encode($params),
        'timeout' => 10,
    ],
];
$context = stream_context_create($options);
file_get_contents($sendUrl, false, $context);

http_response_code(200);
echo 'OK';

PHP

🔗 Step 5: Create the Webhook in Trello

Use the Trello API to create a webhook:

curl -X POST "https://api.trello.com/1/webhooks?key=YOUR_API_KEY&token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "description": "Trello to Telegram",
    "callbackURL": "https://yourdomain.com/trello-to-telegram.php",
    "idModel": "YOUR_BOARD_ID"
}'

ShellScript

✅ If it responds with "active": true, your webhook is working.

🔍 Logging and Debugging

To debug or view logs:

Check log.txt to see incoming payloads
Check actions_cache.txt to avoid duplicate alerts
Use getUpdates API in Telegram to inspect recent messages:

https://api.telegram.org/botYOUR_BOT_TOKEN/getUpdates

✅ Final Result

Whenever someone:

Creates a card
Moves a card
Comments on a card

Your Telegram topic gets an instant notification. 🔔

👋 Conclusion

This setup is simple yet powerful for connecting Trello boards to Telegram using webhooks and plain PHP. You can customize it further to support checklist items, due dates, or even button-based interactions.

Need help setting it up for your team? The ultraDevs team can help you integrate this into your own project.

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How to Send Trello Notifications to Telegram Group Topic Using PHP Webhooks