node-telegram-bot

An event driven plugin based NodeJS Telegram Bot.

Quick Start

To start, set up a bot from @BotFather and store the key in an environment variable $TELEGRAM_TOKEN or alternatively edit the key in app.js. Then run node app.js or alternatively nodemon to begin.

Make sure you get the npm packages first via npm install!

Advanced Configuration

node-telegram-bot utilizes telegram-bot-api by mast, therefore expects the same parameters to the bot. You can change the default parameters in app.js.

Plugins

This bot utilizes plugins to extend its features. They are stored as *.js files in the plugins folder. There are two parts to a plugin:

1. An init function that is called when the bot is started
2. An array of regex & a regexHandler to handle incoming matches.

Both can be used either or both at the same time. The only difference is that regex and regexHandler are only called after the text-message event is emitted.

As reference, read Telegram Bots API and telegram-bot-api. Sample plugins can be found in the ./plugins folder.

Logging

The bot utilizes Winston logger to log chats and errors. Chat and info logs will end up in ./logs/chat.log while warn and error will be output via STDIN.

Events

Bot startup

Start up events are emitted in the following order:

1. bot-starting
2. bot-started
3. plugins-loading
4. plugin-PLUGIN_NAME-loaded
5. plugins-loaded
6. Payload type events
7. Message type events

Payload type events

One of the following may be emitted depending on the type of payload received. The original Message object and the Telegram client is returned with each event. For received-reply event, the reply_to_message property from the Message object is provided as the first parameter.

1. received-service-notification
2. received-message
3. received-forward
4. received-reply

Message type events

One of the following may be emitted depending on the type of message received. The message, the original Message object and the Telegram client is returned with each event.

1. text-message
2. document-message
3. photo-message
4. sticker-message
5. video-message
6. contact-message
7. location-message

Prerequisites

1. NodeJS
2. npm