Message yourself on Telegram

This val lets you send yourself Telegram messages via ValTownBot. This ValTownBot saves you from creating your own Telegram Bot.

However if I'm being honest, it's really simple and fun to make your own Telegram bot. (You just message BotFather.) I'd recommend most folks going that route so you have an unmediated connection to Telegram. However if you want to have the simplest possible setup to just send yourself messages, read on...

Installation

It takes less than a minute to set up!

Start a conversation with ValTownBot
Copy the secret it gives you
Save it in your Val Town Environment Variables under telegram
Send a message!

Usage

`telegramText`

Create val
import { telegramText } from "https://esm.town/v/stevekrouse/telegram?v=14";

const statusResponse = await telegramText("Hello from Val.Town!!");
console.log(statusResponse);

`telegramPhoto`

Create val
import { telegramPhoto } from "https://esm.town/v/stevekrouse/telegram?v=14";

const statusResponse = await telegramPhoto({
  photo: "https://placekitten.com/200/300",
});
console.log(statusResponse);

ValTownBot Commands

/roll - Roll your secret in case you accidentally leak it.
/webhook - Set a webhook to receive messages you send to @ValTownBot

Receiving Messages

If you send /webhook to @ValTownBot, it will let you specify a webhook URL. It will then forward on any messages (that aren't recognized @ValTownBot commands) to that webhook. It's particularly useful for creating personal chatbots, like my telegram <-> DallE bot.

How it works

Telegram has a lovely API.

I created a @ValTownBot via Bot Father.
I created a webhook and registered it with telegram
Whenever someone new messages @ValTownBot, I generate a secret and save it along with their Chat Id in @stevekrouse/telegramValTownBotSecrets (a private val), and message it back to them
Now whenever you call this val, it calls telegramValTownAPI, which looks up your Chat Id via your secret and sends you a message