Create-A-bot

Step by step guide on how to create a bot on telegram with node.js as backend

Requirements

first of all we need to install the requirements

sudo apt install nodejs
sudo apt install npm

Afterwards, we need some dependencies.
We will use express as our bots backend.

npm install express --save
npm install --save telegram-node-bot-api

Then, open telegram https://t.me/BotFather and generate your bot, it will give you an API token which we will need.

Code

Now, open your server and copy this code.

var express = require('express');
const TelegramBot = require('node-telegram-bot-api');
const token = 'YOUR_API_KEY';
const bot = new TelegramBot(token, {polling: true});

var app = express();

app.set('port', (process.env.PORT || 5000));

app.get('/', function(request, response) {});

app.listen(app.get('port'), function() {
  console.log('Node app is running on port', app.get('port'));
});

bot.on('message', (message) => {
    const chatId = message.chat.id;
    const text = message.text;
  
    if (text === '/start') {
      bot.sendMessage(chatId, 'Welcome! Use the /greet command to say hello.');
    } else if (text === '/greet') {
      bot.sendMessage(chatId, `Hello, ${message.from.first_name}! 🤖`);
    } else {
      bot.sendMessage(chatId, `I don't know what ${text} means.`);
    }
});

Change 'YOUR_API_KEY' with the one botFather gave you.
Congrats !!! we have a simple bot which we could do things on.
Now lets make our project better by migrating it to docker.
create these files in your directory.

.env file

BOT_TOKEN=your-api-key

code section

require('dotenv').config();
const TelegramBot = require('node-telegram-bot-api');
const bot = new TelegramBot(process.env.BOT_TOKEN, { polling: true });

bot.on('message', (message) => {
    const chatId = message.chat.id;
    const text = message.text;
  
    if (text === '/start') {
      bot.sendMessage(chatId, 'Welcome! Use the /greet command to say hello.');
    } else if (text === '/greet') {
      bot.sendMessage(chatId, `Hello, ${message.from.first_name}! 🤖`);
    } else if (text === '/gele'){
      bot.sendMessage(chatId, `I don't know what ${text} means.`);
    }
});

package.json

{
    "name": "telegram-bot",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "description": "A simple Telegram bot",
    "main": "bot_server.js",
    "scripts": {
      "start": "node bot.js"
    },
    "dependencies": {
      "dotenv": "^10.0.0",
      "node-telegram-bot-api": "^0.54.0"
    }
}

Dockerfile

FROM node:latest

WORKDIR /app

COPY package*.json ./

RUN npm install

COPY . .

EXPOSE 3000

CMD ["node", "bot_server.js"]

docker compose

version: '3.8'
services:
  bot:
    build: .
    environment:
      - BOT_TOKEN=${API_KEY}
    # env_file: .env
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    restart: always

Running

Now use the command below (in the projects root directory) to run your bot, -d means that the container is detached and will run in the background.

docker-compose up --build -d

After it is finished, use docker ps to the container

root@linux:~/bot# docker ps
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                                           COMMAND                  CREATED          STATUS          PORTS                                        NAMES
7f6e64ddfc59   bot_bot                                         "docker-entrypoint.s…"   16 seconds ago   Up 11 seconds   0.0.0.0:3000->3000/tcp                       bot_bot_1

If there is any problem you could log the containter with the command below

root@linux:~/bot# docker logs container_id

TODO : Create a ask pdf bot

bigwhoman/mini_tutorials-Create-A-bot