Custom channel for telegram: how to access chat_id for telegram bot

Rasa Open Source
1

hi. im trying to make a custom channel for my bot. I just copied the telegram channel file from rasa core, and tried to add a function for pagination. i tried following this tutorial here: python-telegram-bot-pagination · PyPI

CODE #1 (usage example from api):

from telegram_bot_pagination import InlineKeyboardPaginator

    paginator = InlineKeyboardPaginator(
        page_count,
        current_page=page,
        data_pattern='page#{page}'
    )

    bot.send_message(
        chat_id,
        text,
        reply_markup=paginator.markup,
    )

this is how i added it in my cusom_channel.py: (although im also not sure if i did it correctly)

CODE #2 (custom_channel.py)

async def send_paginate(
        self, recipient_id: Text, chat_id, list_pages: List, page=1, **kwargs: Any
    ) -> None:

        paginator = InlineKeyboardPaginator(
            len(list_pages),
            current_page=page,
            data_pattern='page#{page}'
        )

        self.send_message(
            chat_id,
            list_pages[page-1],
            reply_markup=paginator.markup
        )

how do i access the chat_id? where can i get this info? so far, it does not give any errors when i run it, but i tried adding in the actions.py:

CODE #3 (actions.py)

dispatcher.utter_message(list_pages=list_pages)

but i checked and it doesnt call the “send_paginate” function, and instead calls the “send_text_message” function (which is already found initially in the telegram.py channel of rasa core)

just to reiterate, my questions are:

1.) am i implementing telegram pagination api (CODE#1), to my custom channel (CODE#2) correctly? is there any error in my code, perhaps syntax wise?

2.) how do i access the needed variable chat_id for the paginate function (CODE#2)?

3.) am i calling the function “send_paginate” correctly in my actions.py (CODE#3)? should i be using a different function to call it? and should i also pass a value for chat_id or is this passed in the custom_channel.py?

im really sorry if im all over the place or if my questions dont make sense (ノAヽ). i really hope someone could help me. thank u so much!