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Slimbot

Slimbot is a fuss-free, thin wrapper around Telegram Bot API for Node.js. No frills. It is built around the concept of Promises, and uses Bluebird, Request-Promise and EventEmitter3 as its core dependencies. It is also designed to be magic-free, so that developers can easily grok how it works.

Slimbot uses #getUpdates to receive updates out of the box. This makes it easy for developers to jump in and start playing with it without messing around with web hooks.

Resources

• Telegram Bot API Documentation
• Release Notes
• Examples

Getting started

npm i slimbot

const Slimbot = require('slimbot');
const slimbot = new Slimbot(process.env['TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN']);

// Register listeners

slimbot.on('message', message => {
  slimbot.sendMessage(message.chat.id, 'Message received');
});

// Call API

slimbot.startPolling();

Events

Events you can listen to:

• 'message'
• 'edited_message'
• 'channel_post'
• 'edited_channel_post'
• 'callback_query'
• 'inline_query'
• 'chosen_inline_result'
• 'shipping_query'
• 'pre_checkout_query'
• 'poll'
• 'poll_answer'
• 'my_chat_member'
• 'chat_member'

Take note that inline_query and chosen_inline_result only works if you have sent /setinline and /setinlinefeedback commands to @BotFather. Read the docs for more information.

The bot must be an administrator in the chat to receive chat_member updates about other chat members. By default, only my_chat_member updates about the bot itself are received.

slimbot.on('message', message => {
  // do something with message
});

slimbot.on('edited_message', message => {
  // do something with message
});

// and many more...

Methods

All methods found in the Telegram Bot API Documentation have been implemented.

Use them as they are described in the docs, providing the required parameters and if you wish, the optional parameters:

// Simple usage, without any optional parameters
slimbot.sendMessage('123456789', 'hello');

// Defining optional parameters
let optionalParams = {
  parse_mode: "Markdown",
  disable_web_page_preview: true,
  disable_notification: true,
  reply_to_message_id: 1234,
  reply_markup: JSON.stringify({
    inline_keyboard: [[
      { text: 'Today', callback_data: 'pick_today' },
      { text: 'Pick a date', callback_data: 'pick_date' }
    ]]
  })
}

// Calling a method with optional parameters
slimbot.sendMessage('123456789', 'hello', optionalParams);

Sending files

There are 3 ways to send files:

• Method 1: Using a file_id when the the file already exists on Telegram's servers
• Method 2: Using a HTTP URL
• Method 3: Uploading a file to Telegram's servers

Check out the full example to learn how it works.

const fs = require('fs');

// Method 1
slimbot.sendPhoto(chat_id, 'AgADBQADqacxG2gbbxCWBkgvcmeAgxVPyjIABBlug37DKyhDEU0AAgI');

// Method 2
slimbot.sendPhoto(chat_id, 'https://fbatwork.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/govtech-logo.jpg');

// Method 3
let inputFile = fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/bulb.png');
slimbot.sendPhoto(chat_id, inputFile).then(message => {
  // once successful, you can grab the file_id of the file
  console.log(message.result.photo[0].file_id);
});

Additional methods implemented

These are actually convenience methods that use the same underlying editMessageText method in the API.

• editInlineMessageText
• editInlineMessageMedia
• editInlineMessageCaption
• editInlineMessageReplyMarkup
• setInlineChatStickerSet
• deleteInlineChatStickerSet

Call these additional methods with inline_message_id rather than chat_id and message_id.

// slimbot.editMessageText(chat_id, message_id, 'edited message');
slimbot.editMessageText('123456789', 1234, 'edited message');

// slimbot.editInlineMessageText(inline_message_id, 'edited message');
slimbot.editInlineMessageText('4321', 'edited message');

Stopping the bot

slimbot.stopPolling();

Webhook

If you'd like more fine-grained control over how your bot receives updates, set up a webhook. At the moment, you will have to parse the updates yourself, giving you freedom in choosing a Node.js server framework of your liking.

Using Restify for a simple API endpoint:

const Slimbot = require('slimbot');
const slimbot = new Slimbot(process.env['TELEGRAM_TOKEN']);
const restify = require('restify');

let server = restify.createServer();
server.use(restify.bodyParser());

// Setup webhook integration
slimbot.setWebhook({ url: 'https://www.example.com/bot_updates' });

// Get webhook status
slimbot.getWebhookInfo();

// Handle updates (example)
server.post('/bot_updates', function handle(req, res) {
  let update = req.body;
  // handle type of update here...
  // i.e. if (update.message) { ... }
});

server.listen(8443);