This Telegram bot is designed to help you engage with your audience on Telegram by receiving and sending messages, as well as handling a custom command. With this template, you can set up your bot to respond with a friendly "Hi! I am your BasicTelegramBot." when a user starts a conversation, echo back any text messages it receives, and reply with "What's up?" when the /hey command is used.
To get started with this template, simply click Start with this Template on the Lazy platform. This will pre-populate the code in the Lazy Builder interface, so you won't need to copy or paste any code manually.
Before you can interact with your Telegram bot, you'll need to set up an environment secret for your Telegram API token. This token is essential for your bot to authenticate with the Telegram API and start receiving and sending messages.
Here's how to set your environment secret:
Once you've set your environment secret, you're ready to move on to the next step.
No external integrations are required for this template beyond setting up your Telegram bot with BotFather and obtaining your API token, which you've already done if you've set your environment secret correctly.
After setting your environment secret, it's time to test your bot. Click the Test button on the Lazy platform. This will deploy your app and launch the Lazy CLI. If the code requires any additional user input, you will be prompted for it through the Lazy CLI at this stage.
Once your bot is deployed, you can interact with it on Telegram by sending messages and using the /hey command to see how it responds.
After deploying your bot, here's how you can use it:
That's it! You now have a functioning Telegram bot that can interact with users and provide a simple yet engaging experience. Enjoy building your audience and having conversations on Telegram with your BasicTelegramBot!