Telegram Bot Builder
Telegram bot development - chatbots, notifications, AI assistants, and group automation
You want a Telegram bot for your community or business but setting up the Bot API, handling commands, and managing state from scratch is tedious. This playbook builds Telegram bots ā chatbots, notification systems, AI assistants, and group automation ā with clean architecture and deployment.
Who it's for: developers building Telegram notification bots for monitoring and alerting systems, community managers creating automated moderation and engagement bots for Telegram groups, startup founders adding Telegram-based customer interaction to their products, DevOps engineers building deployment notification and status bots, educators creating interactive Telegram bots for course delivery and quizzes
Example
"Build a Telegram bot that sends daily stock alerts and answers portfolio questions" ā Telegram bot pipeline: Bot API setup with BotFather token configuration, command handler architecture for /portfolio /alert /help commands, scheduled job system for daily market data alerts, conversational AI integration for natural language portfolio queries, and deployment configuration with webhook or polling mode
New here? 3-minute setup guide ā | Already set up? Copy the template below.
# Telegram Bot
Build Telegram bots for chatbots, notifications, AI assistants, and group automation. Based on n8n's Telegram workflow templates.
## Overview
This workflow covers:
- Bot setup and configuration
- Message handling patterns
- AI-powered assistants
- Notification workflows
- Group automation
---
## Bot Setup
### Creating a Bot
```yaml
setup_steps:
1. create_bot:
- open: @BotFather on Telegram
- command: /newbot
- provide: bot_name
- provide: bot_username (must end in 'bot')
- receive: API_token
2. configure_bot:
- command: /setdescription
- command: /setabouttext
- command: /setuserpic
- command: /setcommands
3. get_chat_id:
- start: conversation with bot
- call: https://api.telegram.org/bot{TOKEN}/getUpdates
- extract: chat.id from response
```
### Bot Commands
```yaml
commands:
- command: /start
description: "Start the bot"
- command: /help
description: "Show available commands"
- command: /status
description: "Check system status"
- command: /subscribe
description: "Subscribe to notifications"
- command: /unsubscribe
description: "Unsubscribe from notifications"
```
---
## Message Handlers
### Basic Message Handler
```yaml
workflow: "Telegram Message Handler"
trigger: telegram_message
handlers:
text_message:
action: |
1. Parse message text
2. Determine intent
3. Process request
4. Send response
command:
pattern: "^/"
action: route_to_command_handler
photo:
action: |
1. Download photo
2. Process with vision AI
3. Respond with analysis
document:
action: |
1. Download document
2. Extract content
3. Process and respond
voice:
action: |
1. Download audio
2. Transcribe with Whisper
3. Process text
4. Respond (text or voice)
location:
action: |
1. Extract coordinates
2. Lookup local info
3. Respond with relevant data
```
### n8n Workflow
```yaml
workflow: "Telegram Bot n8n"
nodes:
- name: "Telegram Trigger"
type: "n8n-nodes-base.telegramTrigger"
parameters:
updates: ["message", "callback_query"]
- name: "Route Message Type"
type: "n8n-nodes-base.switch"
parameters:
rules:
- output: 0
condition: "{{ $json.message.text.startsWith('/') }}"
- output: 1
condition: "{{ $json.message.photo }}"
- output: 2
condition: "{{ $json.message.voice }}"
- output: 3
fallback: true
- name: "Process with AI"
type: "n8n-nodes-base.openAi"
parameters:
model: "gpt-4"
messages:
- role: "system"
content: "You are a helpful Telegram assistant."
- role: "user"
content: "{{ $json.message.text }}"
- name: "Send Response"
type: "n8n-nodes-base.telegram"
parameters:
chatId: "{{ $json.message.chat.id }}"
text: "{{ $json.response }}"
```
---
## AI-Powered Bot
### GPT-4 Integration
```yaml
ai_bot:
name: "AI Assistant Bot"
system_prompt: |
You are a helpful AI assistant on Telegram.
Guidelines:
- Be concise (Telegram has message limits)
- Use emojis appropriately
- Format with markdown when helpful
- Ask clarifying questions if needed
features:
- conversational_memory: true
- context_window: last_10_messages
- tools: [web_search, calculator, weather]
message_formatting:
max_length: 4096
split_long_messages: true
use_markdown: true
```
### Multi-Modal Bot
```yaml
multimodal_bot:
handlers:
text:
model: gpt-4
action: chat_completion
image:
model: gpt-4-vision
action: analyze_and_respond
voice:
transcribe: whisper
process: gpt-4
respond: text_or_voice
document:
extract: based_on_type
summarize: gpt-4
respond: text
```
---
## Notification System
### Alert Bot
```yaml
workflow: "System Alert Bot"
triggers:
- source: monitoring_system
event: alert
- source: ci_cd
event: build_status
- source: ecommerce
event: new_order
notification_templates:
alert:
format: |
šØ *Alert: {severity}*
*Service:* {service}
*Message:* {message}
*Time:* {timestamp}
[View Dashboard]({dashboard_link})
build:
format: |
{status_emoji} *Build {status}*
*Project:* {project}
*Branch:* {branch}
*Commit:* `{commit_short}`
{details}
order:
format: |
š *New Order!*
*Order:* #{order_id}
*Customer:* {customer}
*Total:* ${total}
*Items:* {item_count}
routing:
by_severity:
critical: [admin_group, on_call_user]
warning: [team_group]
info: [logging_channel]
```
### Scheduled Notifications
```yaml
scheduled_notifications:
daily_digest:
schedule: "9am daily"
template: |
š *Daily Summary - {date}*
š Sales: ${sales} ({change})
š„ New users: {new_users}
š« Open tickets: {tickets}
Have a great day! āļø
weekly_report:
schedule: "Monday 9am"
template: weekly_metrics_report
reminder:
trigger: custom_event
template: |
ā° *Reminder*
{reminder_text}
Scheduled by: {creator}
```
---
## Group Automation
### Welcome Bot
```yaml
group_bot:
on_member_join:
action: |
1. Check if new member
2. Send welcome message
3. Share rules
4. Suggest introduction
template: |
š Welcome to {group_name}, {user_name}!
Please:
1. Read the /rules
2. Introduce yourself
3. Ask questions anytime!
Enjoy your stay! š
on_member_leave:
action: optional_goodbye
moderation:
- spam_detection: auto_delete + warn
- link_filtering: whitelist_only
- flood_control: rate_limit
```
### Poll & Survey Bot
```yaml
poll_bot:
commands:
/poll:
format: "/poll Question | Option1 | Option2 | ..."
action: create_poll
/survey:
action: start_multi_question_survey
/results:
action: show_aggregated_results
features:
- anonymous_voting: optional
- multiple_choice: optional
- scheduled_close: optional
- export_results: to_sheets
```
---
## Inline Features
### Inline Keyboard
```yaml
inline_keyboard:
example:
text: "Choose an option:"
keyboard:
- row:
- text: "Option 1"
callback_data: "opt_1"
- text: "Option 2"
callback_data: "opt_2"
- row:
- text: "Cancel"
callback_data: "cancel"
callback_handler:
opt_1:
action: process_option_1
response: "You selected Option 1"
opt_2:
action: process_option_2
response: "You selected Option 2"
cancel:
action: cancel_operation
response: "Operation cancelled"
```
### Inline Query
```yaml
inline_mode:
trigger: "@botname query"
results:
- type: article
title: "{query} result"
description: "Click to send"
message_text: "Result for: {query}"
- type: photo
photo_url: "{search_result_image}"
- type: gif
gif_url: "{gif_url}"
```
---
## Output Example
**Request**: "Create a Telegram notification bot for server alerts"
**Output**:
```markdown
# Server Alert Telegram Bot
## Setup
1. Create bot with @BotFather
2. Get token: `123456:ABC-DEF...`
3. Get chat ID for alerts channel
## n8n Workflow
```yaml
nodes:
1. Webhook (receives alerts)
2. Format Message
3. Telegram Send
```
## Alert Templates
**Critical Alert:**
```
šØ CRITICAL ALERT
Server: production-web-01
Status: DOWN
Time: 2026-01-30 14:32:05 UTC
Details:
- CPU: 98%
- Memory: 95%
- Disk: 89%
[View Grafana] [Acknowledge]
```
**Recovery:**
```
ā
RECOVERED
Server: production-web-01
Downtime: 5 minutes
Status: All systems normal
Incident resolved automatically.
```
## Implementation
```javascript
// Send alert function
async function sendAlert(severity, message, details) {
const emoji = {
critical: 'šØ',
warning: 'ā ļø',
info: 'ā¹ļø',
success: 'ā
'
};
const text = `${emoji[severity]} *${severity.toUpperCase()}*\n\n${message}\n\n${details}`;
await telegram.sendMessage({
chat_id: ALERT_CHANNEL_ID,
text: text,
parse_mode: 'Markdown'
});
}
```
## Features
- Severity-based routing
- Inline action buttons
- Acknowledgment tracking
- Escalation rules
```
---
*Telegram Bot Workflow - Part of Claude Code*Get new playbooks like this one
One email a week with new Claude Code workflows. Free, like everything here.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
What This Does
Build Telegram bots for chatbots, notifications, AI assistants, and group automation. Based on n8n's Telegram workflow templates.
Quick Start
Step 1: Create a Project Folder
mkdir -p ~/Documents/TelegramBot
Step 2: Download the Template
Click Download above, then:
mv ~/Downloads/CLAUDE.md ~/Documents/TelegramBot/
Step 3: Start Working
cd ~/Documents/TelegramBot
claude