shacki_bot

New Telegram bot for shackspace status updates and basic chat interactions.

The bot:

• fetches door state from the shackspace API,
• answers direct commands in Telegram,
• reacts to mentions in group chats,
• posts periodic state-change notifications.

Repository Structure

• shacki_tbot.py - main bot application.
• README.md - this documentation.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• Telegram bot token
• Internet access to https://api.shackspace.de/v1/space

Python dependencies used by the code:

• python-telegram-bot
• requests
• pytz

Example install:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install python-telegram-bot requests pytz

Configuration

Runtime arguments:

• --token (required): Telegram bot token (critical info, so is not contained in this repo).
• --developer (optional): developer contact id shown in unknown command replies.

Running

Recommended:

source .venv/bin/activate
python3 shacki_tbot.py --token "<your_token>" --developer "<developer_contact_or_id>"

Bot Commands

• /start - welcome message.
• /help - command list.
• /doorState - current cached door state (with friendly hint).
• /doorStateDetailed - current state plus previous state and timestamps.
• /plenum - placeholder response.
• /version - bot version string.

Unknown commands are handled with a fallback response.

Message Handling Behavior

• Private chat: responds to plain text messages.
• Group/supergroup: responds only when the bot username mention (@shacki_bot) is present.
• Includes simple keyword-based replies (hello, ping, door, etc.).

Door State Update Flow

1. The bot calls https://api.shackspace.de/v1/space.
2. Reads doorState.open from the JSON response.
3. Converts it to open / closed.
4. Stores timestamps in Europe/Berlin timezone.
5. On state change, publishes notifications to configured groups.

Error cases are stored as Unknown: ... states and logged.

Security Notes

• Do not commit real bot tokens to git history.
• Prefer environment variables or secret management for production deployments.

Known Limitations

• allowed_updates=[] in polling receives all update types, which may be broader than needed.
• Conversation logic is intentionally simple and keyword-based.
• API/network failures are surfaced as Unknown state instead of retries with backoff.