Telegram messages show raw Markdown instead of formatted text

[iNicholasBE]

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.

[Mohammedamaan5714]

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]

Hi @Mohammedamaan5714 - sounds like a good plan!

Markdown to html is indeed also my preferred solution.

[Mohammedamaan5714]

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]

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]

Hi @rdehuyss, I have opened a PR for this. Please review when you get time.

[rdehuyss]

Will do! Probably for somewhere end of today. Thx!