Telegram plugin: inbound channel notifications not surfacing in conversation

Summary

The Telegram MCP plugin receives messages and sends notifications/claude/channel via the MCP transport, but they never appear in the Claude Code conversation. Outbound messaging (the reply tool) works perfectly.

Environment

• Claude Code: 2.1.81
• MCP SDK: 1.27.1
• Platform: macOS Darwin 25.2.0
• Runtime: Bun
• Plugin: claude-channel-telegram 0.0.1

Steps to reproduce

1. Configure Telegram plugin with a bot token
2. Pair a Telegram user via /telegram:access
3. User is in allowFrom list, pairing confirmed ("Paired! Say hi to Claude.")
4. Send a text message from Telegram to the bot
5. Bot consumes the update (verified via getUpdates returning empty)
6. mcp.notification({ method: 'notifications/claude/channel', ... }) is called (line 792 in server.ts)
7. Notification never appears in the Claude Code conversation

What works

• Outbound reply tool sends messages to Telegram successfully
• Bot polling is active (single instance, no 409 conflicts)
• No webhook set on the bot
• Access control is correct (user in allowlist)
• Photo downloads land in ~/.claude/channels/telegram/inbox/

Expected

Inbound text messages should appear as <channel> tags in the conversation.