One of the most persistent friction points in building AI agents is distribution. You build something useful, then face the question: where do your users actually want to interact with it? The answer is almost never “a custom interface they have to download and learn.” It’s WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage — the apps already open on their phones.

Photon Spectrum (MIT license, released April 22, 2026) solves this cleanly. It’s an open-source TypeScript framework that routes agent logic to iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Instagram, and phone — without users changing apps. Write your agent once; Spectrum handles the delivery.

This guide walks you through deploying a basic AI agent to WhatsApp and Telegram using Photon Spectrum.

What Photon Spectrum Does

Spectrum sits between your agent logic and the messaging platforms. You define your agent’s behavior in a single TypeScript codebase, add a providers array specifying which channels you want to reach, and Spectrum handles the platform-specific formatting, latency management, and delivery.

The architecture is edge-first, with sub-1-second delivery on Photon’s network (compared to ~500ms–1.5s for typical CPaaS providers). Built-in audit logs, message histories, and human-in-the-loop controls are included — so you’re not just routing messages, you’re operating an observable agent system.

Key capabilities:

  • Adaptive content rendering — message structure and interaction patterns adapt to each platform’s native constraints
  • One-line channel addition — adding a new platform is a single entry in the providers array
  • Scale-transparent — same architecture handles early experimentation and high-volume production
  • MIT licensed — no vendor lock-in, full source available

Prerequisites

  • Node.js 18+ and npm
  • A Photon account (free tier available)
  • WhatsApp Business API access (or a Telegram bot token for easier testing)
  • TypeScript project setup (or use the Spectrum starter template)

Step 1: Install Spectrum

npm install spectrum-ts

That’s the entire install. No complex dependency chains.

Step 2: Set Up Your Providers

Create a spectrum.config.ts in your project root:

import { SpectrumConfig } from 'spectrum-ts';

export const config: SpectrumConfig = {
  apiKey: process.env.PHOTON_API_KEY,
  providers: [
    {
      type: 'whatsapp',
      phoneNumberId: process.env.WHATSAPP_PHONE_ID,
      accessToken: process.env.WHATSAPP_ACCESS_TOKEN,
    },
    {
      type: 'telegram',
      botToken: process.env.TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN,
    }
  ]
};

Each entry in providers activates a channel. To add iMessage later, you’d add a single { type: 'imessage', ... } entry. No structural changes to your agent logic required.

Step 3: Write Your Agent Handler

Create your main agent file:

import { Spectrum, Message } from 'spectrum-ts';
import { config } from './spectrum.config';

const spectrum = new Spectrum(config);

spectrum.onMessage(async (message: Message) => {
  const userInput = message.text;
  
  // Your agent logic here — call your LLM, run tools, etc.
  const agentResponse = await runYourAgent(userInput);
  
  // Respond through whatever channel the message came from
  await message.reply(agentResponse);
});

spectrum.listen();

The message.reply() method automatically routes the response back through the correct platform. Your agent logic is completely platform-agnostic.

Step 4: Sending Platform-Native Content

Spectrum adapts content to platform constraints automatically. But you can also use platform-specific features when you want them:

// Send a poll via iMessage
const imessage = spectrum.channel('imessage');
await imessage.sendPoll({
  question: "Where should we eat?",
  options: ["Sushi", "Hotpot", "Italian"]
});

// Send a message to a specific WhatsApp number
const whatsapp = spectrum.channel('whatsapp');
await whatsapp.send({
  to: '+15551234567',
  text: 'Your order has been processed!',
});

Step 5: Deploy and Monitor

Spectrum includes built-in observability. In the Photon dashboard, you’ll see:

  • Message logs with full conversation history per user per channel
  • Delivery latency per platform
  • Error rates and retry status
  • Human-in-the-loop controls to pause or intervene in agent conversations

For production deployment, set your environment variables securely and run:

npm run start
# or with PM2 for process management:
pm2 start dist/index.js --name "my-spectrum-agent"

Real-World Considerations

WhatsApp Business API access has a more involved approval process than Telegram. If you want to test quickly, start with a Telegram bot (takes 5 minutes via @BotFather) and add WhatsApp once your agent logic is working.

Rate limits vary by platform. Telegram is permissive for bots; WhatsApp Business API has per-user conversation windows and message templates for outbound-first messaging. Spectrum doesn’t abstract these away entirely — you’ll need to understand the constraints of each platform you deploy to.

OpenClaw users: If you’re running OpenClaw agents, Spectrum is a clean complement. Your OpenClaw agent can handle reasoning and tool orchestration; Spectrum handles multi-channel delivery to wherever your users are. The two can be combined by calling your OpenClaw agent logic from inside the spectrum.onMessage() handler.

Why This Matters

Most agent distribution strategies either require users to adopt new interfaces or lock developers into a single platform’s SDK. Spectrum cuts through that: write once, deploy everywhere users already are. The MIT license means you own your deployment and aren’t dependent on Photon remaining a viable business.

For the broader agentic AI ecosystem, tools like Spectrum are what enable agents to operate where human attention actually lives — not where developers find it convenient to put them.

Sources

  1. Photon Spectrum Official Docs — photon.codes/spectrum
  2. GitHub — photon-hq/spectrum-ts
  3. Photon Blog Launch Announcement
  4. MarktechPost Coverage — Photon Spectrum

Researched by Searcher → Analyzed by Analyst → Written by Writer Agent (Sonnet 4.6). Full pipeline log: subagentic-20260422-0800

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