Sending a notification message to Telegram using its HTTP API via cURL

readme.md

1. Create a bot
2. Get the bot's API token from @BotFather
3. Add your bot to the chat you'll be sending messages to
4. Get the ID of the chat
   a. Fetch bot updates and look for the chat id:

   curl https://api.telegram.org/bot$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/getUpdates | -r '.result[].message.chat.id'

   b. OR, run bot.rb and @-mention your bot in the chat. The chat id will appear in bot.rb's output.
   The bot may need temporary message access: @BotFather > Bot Settings > Group Privacy > Turn off
5. Send a message using the HTTP API: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#sendmessage

   curl -X POST \
        -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
        -d '{"chat_id": "123456789", "text": "This is a test from curl", "disable_notification": true}' \
        https://api.telegram.org/bot$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/sendMessage

bot.rb

# Use this script to test that your Telegram bot works.
#
# Install the dependency
#
#   $ gem install telegram_bot
#
# Run the bot
#
#   $ ruby bot.rb
#
# Send a message to the bot to get the current chat's ID in the console output.
# If it's a group chat, invite them to the chat first.

require 'logger'
require 'telegram_bot'

TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN = "YOUR_BOT_API_TOKEN"

bot = TelegramBot.new(token: TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN, logger: Logger.new(STDOUT))

bot.get_updates(fail_silently: true) do |message|
  puts "@#{message.from.username}: #{message.text}"
  puts "Chat-ID: #{message.chat.id}"
end

If you are getting an empty result list when doing getUpdates for your bot, kick the bot out of the group, invite again and fetch again.

Very useful. Made a neat little script that you can import in bash. Adds a title/timestamp to it. Keeps me informed whenever my deployments need my attention.

#!bin/bash

TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN="botid:token"
CHAT_ID="1234567890"

send_telegram () {
    title="$1"
    timestamp="$(date -R)"
    msg="$title\n$timestamp\n\n$(echo "$2" | sed -z -e 's|\\|\\\\|g' -e 's|\n|\\n|g' -e 's|\t|\\t|g' -e 's|\"|\\"|g')"
    entities="[{\"offset\":0,\"length\":${#title},\"type\":\"bold\"},{\"offset\":$((${#title}+1)),\"length\":${#timestamp},\"type\":\"italic\"}]"
    data="{\"chat_id\":\"$CHAT_ID\",\"text\":\"$msg\",\"entities\":$entities,\"disable_notification\": true}"
    curl -s -o /dev/null -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d "$data" -X POST https://api.telegram.org/bot$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/sendMessage
}

Import with source /path/to/telegram.sh then can call the function each time you want to send a message like so send_telegram "title in bold" "this is the message body".
Output:
title in bold
Sat, 07 Oct 2022 00:24:57 +0100
this is the message body

The right curl:

curl -s https://api.telegram.org/bot$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/getUpdates | jq -r '.result[].message.chat.id'

Can i send file with message instead? Like this, but with curl

Can i send file with message instead? Like this, but with curl

yes

curl -X POST https://api.telegram.org/bot/sendDocument -F chat_id='123456789' -F document=@'/path/to/file' -F caption='source: https://example.com'

Instead of:

curl https://api.telegram.org/bot$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/getUpdates | jq .message.chat.id

I think it should be:

curl https://api.telegram.org/bot$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/getUpdates | jq 'result[].message.chat.id'

Instead of:

curl https://api.telegram.org/bot$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/getUpdates | jq .message.chat.id

I think it should be:

curl https://api.telegram.org/bot$7040428535:AAH-RtS-yODyP-CIbZrEr433Y2xrLuP13vk/getUpdates | jq 'result[].message.chat.id'

hi guys, is it possible to get the bot's API token from @Botfather NOT through telegram but using some api? I need to create bots automatically in my .net app

its possible with account api, instead of bot api.

Found myself in need to send an arbitrary text with unicode and quotes, the original example didn't work.

Here is updated one, forcing jq to do all of the string escaping:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# noti-bot - send notification in telegram
# Usage:
#   echo "your text" | noti-bot
# or
#   noti-bot "your text" | noti-bot

API=yours
chat_id=yours

if [[ -n "$1" ]]; then
    msg="$1"
else
    msg="$(cat)"
fi


# to escape " and unicode, no, printf is not enough, neither is multiple -d for curl
data="$(echo '{"chat_id": "aaa", "text": "aaa", "disable_notification": false}' |
    jq --arg msg "$msg" --arg chat "$chat_id" '{"chat_id": $ARGS.named.chat, "text": $ARGS.named.msg, "disable_notification": false}')"

# echo "$data"

ans="$(curl -s --tlsv1.2 -X POST \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -d "$data" \
     https://api.telegram.org/bot$API/sendMessage)"

if [[ "$(echo "$ans" | jq -r '.ok')" != "true" ]]; then
    echo "$ans" | jq -r '"error \(.error_code) - \(.description)"'
fi

Demo:

echo -e 'Nope!";$(pwd)"\nyes - приветこんにちは' | ./noti-bot

I know, I know, "at this point just use python or something". I needed it with curl.

If succesful - prints nothing.
If not - prints "error_code - error_description".