Create a voice & text Telegram assistant with Lookio RAG and GPT-4.1

Description

Create a Telegram bot that answers questions using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) powered by Lookio and an LLM agent (GPT-4.1).

This template handles both text and voice messages (voice transcribed via a Mistral model by default), routes queries through an agent that can call a Lookio tool to fetch knowledge from your uploaded documents, and returns concise, Telegram-friendly replies. A security switch lets you restrict use to a single Telegram username for private testing, or remove the filter to make the bot public.

Who is this for?

Internal teams & knowledge workers**: Turn your internal docs into an interactive Telegram assistant for quick knowledge lookups.
Support & ops**: Provide on-demand answers from your internal knowledge base without exposing full documentation.
Developers & automation engineers**: Use this as a reference for integrating agents, transcription, and RAG inside n8n.
No-code builders**: Quickly deploy a chat interface that uses Lookio for accurate, source-backed answers.

What it does / What problem does this solve?

Provides accurate, source-backed answers: Routes queries to **Lookio so replies are grounded in your documents instead of generic web knowledge.
Handles voice & text transparently: Accepts Telegram voice messages, transcribes them (via the **Mistral API node by default), and treats transcripts the same as typed text.
Simple agent + tool architecture: Uses a **LangChain AI Agent with a Query knowledge base tool to separate reasoning from retrieval.
Privacy control: Includes a **Myself? filter to restrict access to a specific Telegram username for safe testing.

How it works

Trigger: Telegram Trigger receives incoming messages (text or voice).
Route: Message Router detects voice vs text. Voice files are fetched with Get Audio File.
Transcribe: Mistral transcribe receives the audio file and returns a transcript; the transcript or text is normalized into preset\_user\_message and consolidated in Consolidate user message.
Agent: AI Agent (GPT-4.1-mini configured) runs with a system prompt that instructs it to call the Query knowledge base tool when domain knowledge is required.
Respond: The agent output is sent back to the user via Telegram answer.

How to set up

Create a Lookio assistant: Sign up to Lookio, the API-first RAG platform, upload documents, and create an assistant.
Add credentials in n8n: Configure Telegram API, OpenAI (or your LLM provider), and Mistral Cloud credentials in n8n.
Configure Lookio tool: In the Query knowledge base node, replace <your-lookio-api-key> and <your-assistant-id> placeholders with your Lookio API Key and Assistant ID.
Set Telegram privacy (optional): Edit the Myself? If node and replace <Replace with your Telegram username> with your username to restrict access. Remove the node to allow public use.
Adjust transcription (optional): Swap the Mistral transcribe HTTP node for another provider (OpenAI, Whisper, etc.) and update its prompt to include your jargon list.
Connect LLM: In OpenAI Chat Model node, add your OpenAI API key (or configure another LLM node) and ensure the AI Agent node references this model.
Activate workflow: Activate the workflow and test by messaging your bot in Telegram.

Requirements

An n8n instance (cloud or self-hosted)
A Telegram Bot token added in n8n credentials
A Lookio account, API Key, and Assistant ID
An LLM provider account (OpenAI or equivalent) for the OpenAI Chat Model node
A Mistral API key (or other transcription provider) for voice transcription

How to take it further

Add provenance & sources**: Parse Lookio responses and include short citations or source links in the agent replies.
Rich replies**: Use Telegram media (images, files) or inline keyboards to create follow-up actions (open docs, request feedback, escalate to humans).
Multi-user access control**: Replace the single-username filter with a list or role-based access system (Airtable or Google Sheets lookup) to allow multiple trusted users.
Logging & analytics: Save queries and agent responses to **Airtable or Google Sheets for monitoring, quality checks, and prompt improvement.