Telegram channel plugin installed but --channels flag not available

The Telegram plugin (plugin:telegram@claude-plugins-official) installs successfully and its skills (/telegram:configure, /telegram:access) work for managing bot tokens and access policies. However, launching Claude Code with --channels plugin:telegram@claude-plugins-official produces "Channels are not currently available" and the flag doesn't appear in --help.

The plugin can write credentials and access rules, but the channel server runtime that polls Telegram and routes messages to Claude doesn't seem to ship in the current release (2.1.81).

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install the Telegram plugin: claude plugin add telegram@claude-plugins-official
2. Configure bot token: /telegram:configure <token>
3. Launch with: claude --channels plugin:telegram@claude-plugins-official
4. Observe warning: "Channels are not currently available"
5. claude --help shows no --channels flag

Expected: The channel server starts polling Telegram and routes incoming messages to Claude.

Actual: The flag is silently ignored. The bot token is valid (verified via Telegram API getMe), no webhook conflicts, but the bot never responds to DMs.

Environment:

• Claude Code version: 2.1.81
• OS: macOS (Darwin 24.6.0)

Is channel support expected in an upcoming release? Is there a beta flag or waitlist to enable it?