Telegram Bot API

This is an accurate and comprehensive Telegram Bot API written in TypeScript. It provides a full up-to-date list of methods and types defined by the official documentation.

Using the API

import {Api} from "@somethings/telegram-bot-api";

const TOKEN = "123456:ABC-DEF1234ghIkl-zyx57W2v1u123ew11";

const api = new Api(TOKEN);

api.getMe().then((user) => {
	console.log(user.id);
});

This API exposes all officially documented methods as individual functions.

It also provides two mutually exclusive methods: listen and poll, which represent two officially supported ways of getting updates.

listen(port: number, url: string, getUpdate: UpdateGetter)

Starts a HTTP server listening for incoming Webhooks. Note that Telegram only supports communication over HTTPS, so you have to set up a third-party HTTPS capable web-proxy like nginx.

• port: number - port to listen on;
• url: string - URL to match against incoming requests that will use the value specified during initialization via setWebhook; all other requests will be ignored;
• getUpdate: UpdateGetter - callback for getting incoming updates.

poll(timeout: number, getUpdate: UpdateGetter)

Establishes an infinite loop of getUpdates long polling calls.

• timeout: number - polling timeout;
• getUpdate: UpdateGetter - callback for getting incoming updates.

Sending files

There are some methods for sending binary files to the Telegram cloud like setWebhook and sendPhoto. This API provides a custom type representing such data - InputFile, which is different from the InputFile type defined in the official documentation. Refer to the code for more information please, it's pretty self-explanatory.

How to update the API

1. Clone the repositpry and npm install all the dependencies;
2. Run npm run download to download a copy of the official documentation page and save it to sync/api.html file;
3. Inspect the diff of sync/api.html to determine if the API needs to be updated:
   • If there are only changes in existing types or methods just run npm run parse to read documentation from sync/api.html and sync/api.json and generate AbstractApi.ts with actual interfaces fields and descriptions;
   • If there are new types or methods (new H4 tags) or any changes affecting manually managed information update sync/api.json accordingly and run npm run parse;
4. Inspect changes in AbstractApi.ts;
5. Check Api.ts for possible TypeScript errors as it derives from generated AbstractApi.ts and possibly add new methods here;
6. Commit everything.