telegram-bot

A minimal, zero-dependency Telegram bot polling module for Node.js, written in TypeScript.

Features

• 🚀 No external dependencies — uses native Node.js fetch
• 🔄 Long-polling with automatic retry and exponential backoff
• 📦 Full TypeScript support with type declarations
• 🧩 Simple high-level API (initBot) or direct class usage (TelegramBot)

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18.0.0

Installation

npm install telegram-bot
# or
pnpm add telegram-bot

Usage

Quick start with initBot

import { initBot } from 'telegram-bot';

const bot = initBot({
  token: 'YOUR_BOT_TOKEN',
  onMessage: (msg) => {
    console.log('Received:', msg.text);
    bot.sendMessage(msg.chat.id, `You said: ${msg.text}`);
  },
  onPollingError: (err) => console.error(err),
});

Direct class usage

import { TelegramBot } from 'telegram-bot';

const bot = new TelegramBot('YOUR_BOT_TOKEN', { polling: true });

bot.on('message', async (msg) => {
  await bot.sendMessage(msg.chat.id, 'Hello!');
});

bot.on('polling_error', (err) => console.error(err));

API

initBot(params)

| Param | Type | Description | |---|---|---| | token | string | Telegram bot token from @BotFather | | polling | boolean | Enable polling (default: true) | | onMessage | (msg) => void \| Promise<void> | Handler for incoming messages | | onPollingError | (err) => void | Optional error handler |

getBot()

Returns the current bot instance initialized by initBot. Throws if not initialized.

TelegramBot class

| Method | Description | |---|---| | sendMessage(chatId, text, options?) | Send a text message | | sendChatAction(chatId, action) | Send a chat action (e.g. "typing") | | editMessageText(text, options?) | Edit an existing message | | answerCallbackQuery(id, options?) | Answer an inline keyboard callback | | getMe() | Get bot info | | stopPolling() | Stop the polling loop | | on('message', handler) | Register a message handler | | on('polling_error', handler) | Register a polling error handler |

License

ISC