@yaebal/typing

keeps the "is typing…" indicator alive for the duration of an async operation — no manual sendChatAction calls, no forgotten indicator left stuck after telegram's ~5s expiry. built for long LLM/API calls where the reply takes a noticeable amount of time to arrive.

install

pnpm add @yaebal/typing

usage

import { typing } from "@yaebal/typing";

bot.install(typing());

bot.on("message:text", async (ctx) => {
	const reply = await ctx.typing(() => llm.complete(ctx.message.text));
	await ctx.reply(reply);
});

ctx.typing(fn) sends sendChatAction: "typing" immediately, re-sends it on an interval so it survives telegram's ~5 second expiry, and clears itself the instant fn settles — resolved or rejected. the handler above shows a live typing indicator for as long as the LLM call takes, with no cleanup code of its own.

behavior

• ctx.typing(fn, options?) — wraps an async operation. sends the chat action right away, keeps it alive on options.intervalMs (default 4000ms — under telegram's ~5s expiry), and clears the interval as soon as fn() settles. resolves/rejects to whatever fn() does.
• ctx.typing(action?) — the plain one-off form: sends a single chat action and resolves to the api's boolean result. defaults to "typing"; also takes any other sendChatAction action ("upload_photo", "record_voice", "find_location", …).
• a failed keep-alive ping is swallowed — it's a best-effort UI touch, not something that should abort the operation it's decorating. observe it via onError instead of a thrown exception.
• an update with no chat (e.g. inline_query) can't show an indicator: the one-off form rejects (there's nothing to send), the fn form just runs fn() plain — the operation itself still matters even without a chat to animate.

options

bot.install(
	typing({
		action: "typing", // default chat action, overridable per call
		intervalMs: 4000, // re-send cadence, in ms — stay under telegram's ~5s expiry
		onError: (error) => logger.warn("typing keep-alive failed", error),
	}),
);

// per-call overrides win over the plugin's defaults:
await ctx.typing(() => generateImage(prompt), { action: "upload_photo" });

part of yaebal — a type-safe, runtime-agnostic Telegram Bot API framework. MIT.