telegram

Telegram Bot for gptme

A Telegram bot that provides access to gptme's AI assistant capabilities through Telegram.

Features

• 💬 Natural conversation with gptme
• 🔧 Access to gptme tools (read, save, append, patch, shell)
• 📊 Per-user rate limiting
• 🔒 Trusted user allowlist for security
• 📝 Conversation history per chat
• 🔄 State tracking (shared with Discord bot via ConversationTracker)

Setup

1. Create a Telegram Bot

1. Open Telegram and search for @BotFather
2. Send /newbot and follow the prompts
3. Copy the bot token provided

2. Configure Environment

Create a .env.telegram file in your gptme workspace:

TELEGRAM_TOKEN=your_bot_token_here
MODEL=anthropic  # or openai, etc.
RATE_LIMIT=1.0  # seconds between messages
TRUSTED_USERS=username1,username2  # comma-separated usernames or user IDs
AGENT_NAME=Agent  # bot display name

3. Run the Bot

# Direct execution (uses uv for dependencies)
./telegram_bot.py

# Or with uv explicitly
uv run telegram_bot.py

Commands

• /start - Welcome message and introduction
• /clear - Clear conversation history
• /help - Show help information

Architecture

This bot shares some infrastructure with the Discord bot through communication_utils/:

• State Tracking: ConversationTracker - Conversation state management (shared)
• Rate Limiting: Simple local implementation (not shared)

Shared vs Bot-Specific Code

Component	Location	Shared?
State tracking	communication_utils/state/	✅ Yes
Rate limiting	scripts/telegram/telegram_bot.py	❌ Simple local implementation
Bot logic	scripts/telegram/	❌ Telegram-specific
Bot logic	scripts/discord/	❌ Discord-specific

Note: The rate limiter could be moved to communication_utils/rate_limiting/ in a follow-up PR if desired. The current implementation uses a simple local rate limiter for simplicity.

Security

By default, the bot only responds to users in the TRUSTED_USERS list. This is a security measure to prevent unauthorized access to gptme's capabilities.

To allow all users (not recommended for public bots):

• Leave TRUSTED_USERS empty or unset

Logs

Conversation logs are stored in:

• logs_telegram/chat_{chat_id}/ - Per-chat conversation logs
• logs_telegram/state/ - State tracking data

Comparison with Discord Bot

Feature	Telegram	Discord
Message limit	4096 chars	2000 chars
Rate limiting	✅ Local implementation	✅ Local implementation
State tracking	✅ Shared ConversationTracker	✅ Shared ConversationTracker
Trusted users	✅	✅
Commands	/start, /clear, /help	!help, !clear, etc.

Development

The bot uses the same patterns as the Discord bot:

• python-telegram-bot library for Telegram API
• gptme for AI capabilities
• Shared utilities from communication_utils/

To add new features, consider whether they should be:

1. Telegram-specific (add to this bot)
2. Shared (add to communication_utils/)