Telegram Bot

In this case we are using javascript and Nodejs for develop the bot. Telegraf.js is a library that will helps to make it easy. First of all we need our api token of Telegram bot.

Get Bot Token Api

• Go to telegram and search BotFather (You have to choose the verified bot).
• Enter on the chat and send /start.
• We will recieve an info message and we have to answer /newbot.
• He will ask for a name and a username of the bot.
• Then you will have a congrats message with the token api. Should be something like 123456789:AbCdefGhIJKlmNoPQRsTUVwxyZ.

Getting Started

Installation

• Be sure that have node.js installed.

npm install -g npm

Install Telegraf.js

$ npm install telegraf

Create your file

In your directory create a main.js file and import telegraf.

const { Telegraf } = require('telegraf');

Set the bot constant with your token directly (not recommended)¹.

const bot = new Telegraf("TOKEN_API");

or with environment variables.

const bot = new Telegraf(process.env.BOT_TOKEN);

Environment Variables

• You can use environment variables creating a .env file and inside write BOT_TOKEN:"YOUR_TOKEN".
• After install dotenv npm install dotenv --save
• Import dotenv to your main.js

require('dotenv').config();

Example bot configs

const { Telegraf } = require('telegraf');

const bot = new Telegraf(process.env.BOT_TOKEN);
bot.start((ctx) => ctx.reply('Welcome'));
bot.help((ctx) => ctx.reply('Send me a sticker'));
bot.on('sticker', (ctx) => ctx.reply('👍'));
bot.hears('hi', (ctx) => ctx.reply('Hey there'));

bot.launch();

Run your bot

• For the first test. Run in your terminal node main.js
• Go to your Telegram app, search your bot chat and write /start
• After a change remember kill your process and run node main.js again.

Bot on Groups

If you want use your bot on a group:

• Invite the bot to the group
• Give admin permissions to him

Footnotes

1. Is important dont share or upload your tokens or keys. Using .env is a easy method to put them safe. ↩