Creating a Telegram Bot with Python-Flask (MacOS)

In this tutorial, I will be showing you how to get your Telegram Bot started locally on MacOS. I believe the steps can be replicated on Windows or Linux as well. In another article, I will be showing you how to deploy the python-flask server.

Telegram BotFather and Python-Flask

Step 1: Setting up your python-flask server

For quick set-up you may fork my python-flask server repository. Simply follow the steps in the readme.

Python-Flask Server Repository: https://github.com/jonathantan12/python-flask-server-template

Alternatively, you may refer to this, https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/2.3.x/quickstart/.

Step 2: Create a Telegram Bot

With a telegram application downloaded, search for BotFather.

Click “Start”. Which will start the prompt with the BotFather using /start.

Select /newbot.

Give a name to your telegram Bot with the username ending with bot. For example, TetrisBot or tetris_bot.

Once done, take note of your API key which you will use in your development of your telegram bot later on.

Step 3: Set up ngrok — For port tunneling.

ngrok is a cross-platform application that enables developers to expose a local development server to the Internet with minimal effort. The software makes your locally-hosted web server appear to be hosted on a subdomain of ngrok.com, meaning that no public IP or domain name on the local machine is needed. (https://www.pubnub.com/guides/what-is-ngrok/)

To set up ngrok, you may review this detailed guide on ngrok on how to get started. https://ngrok.com/docs/getting-started/

For macOS, use HomeBrew:

brew install ngrok/ngrok/ngrok

For Windows, use Chocolatey:

choco install ngrok

To test that ngrok is up and running:

    $ ngrok -h

    NAME:
      ngrok - tunnel local ports to public URLs and inspect traffic

    USAGE:
      ngrok [command] [flags]

    DESCRIPTION:
      ngrok exposes local networked services behinds NATs and firewalls to the
      public internet over a secure tunnel. Share local websites, build/test
      webhook consumers and self-host personal services.
      Detailed help for each command is available with 'ngrok help <command>'.
      Open http://localhost:4040 for ngrok's web interface to inspect traffic.

    Author:
      ngrok - <support@ngrok.com>

    TERMS OF SERVICE: https://ngrok.com/tos

    EXAMPLES:
      ngrok http 80                           # secure public URL for port 80 web server
      ngrok http --domain baz.ngrok.dev 8080  # port 8080 available at baz.ngrok.dev
      ngrok http foo.dev:80                   # tunnel to host:port instead of localhost
      ngrok http https://localhost            # expose a local https server
      ngrok tcp 22                            # tunnel arbitrary TCP traffic to port 22
      ngrok tls --domain=foo.com 443          # TLS traffic for foo.com to port 443
      ngrok start foo bar baz                 # start tunnels from the configuration file

    COMMANDS:
      api                            use ngrok agent as an api client
      completion                     generates shell completion code for bash or zsh
      config                         update or migrate ngrok's configuration file
      credits                        prints author and licensing information
      diagnose                       diagnose connection issues
      help                           Help about any command
      http                           start an HTTP tunnel
      service                        run and control an ngrok service on a target operating system
      start                          start tunnels by name from the configuration file
      tcp                            start a TCP tunnel
      tls                            start a TLS tunnel
      tunnel                         start a tunnel for use with a tunnel-group backend
      update                         update ngrok to the latest version
      version                        print the version string

    OPTIONS:
          --config strings   path to config files; they are merged if multiple
      -h, --help             help for ngrok
      -v, --version          version for ngrok

Start ngrok:

ngrok http 5000

You should see something similar to the screenshot below.

Step 4: Set up Webhook between your telegram-bot and python-flask server.

Run this line in your browser. The URL is the one that is forwarding the request from the internet to your localhost. In this case, the link ending with the .ngrok-free.app

https://api.telegram.org/bot<Your Bot Token>/setWebhook?url=<URL that you got from Ngrok>

After running, your browser will return you:

{"ok":true,"result":true,"description":"Webhook was set"}

Next, we will want to test if your bot is connected. Return to code editor and insert this POST route. If you have forked my repository, you can insert this into dashboard.py

@app.route('/', methods=['POST'])
def post():
    if request.method == 'POST':
        # Access POST data from the request
        msg = request.get_json() 

        print(msg)

        return Response('ok', status=200)

Now if you start your bot again by entering /start into your bot, you will see this result in your terminal.

With the response (message), we can see that we are able to gather the information of the user and command.

Now to enable your bot to receive and reply to your chat, you can replace the POST route with this code:

@app.route('/', methods=['POST'])
def post_example():
    if request.method == 'POST':
        # Access POST data from the request
        msg = request.get_json()  
        print("Message: ",msg)

        # Trying to parse message
        try:
            print("There is a text")
            chat_id = msg['message']['chat']['id']
            text = msg['message']['text'] # This gets the text from the msg

            if text == "are you alive?":
            
                url = f'https://api.telegram.org/bot{bot_token}/sendMessage' # Calling the telegram API to reply the message
                
                payload = {
                    'chat_id': chat_id,
                    'text': "yes, I am alive"
                }

                r = requests.post(url, json=payload)

                if r.status_code == 200:
                    return Response('ok', status=200)
                else: 
                    return Response('Failed to send message to Telegram', status=500)
        except:
            print("No text found")

        return Response('ok', status=200)

In the end, if you were to type “are you alive?” to your telegram bot, it will receive your text and reply “yes, I am alive”.

Note: I have placed my bot token in my environment variable file.

Github Source Code: https://github.com/jonathantan12/telegrambot_flask_setup