Creating a simple Echo Telegram Bot using Google Cloud Functions in 5 minutes

echobot.py using Cloud Functions.md

Requirements:

• Google Cloud Platform with Billing enabled.
• Bot created using the @BotFather on Telegram.
• Bot Token issued by the @BotFather.

1) Go to Google Cloud Console.

2) On the Navigation Menu, go to Cloud Functions.

3) Click on Create Function.

4a) In this form, the important fields are:

• Name: webhook
• Trigger: HTTP
• Runtime: Python 3.7
• URL: Copy this URL, you will use it later

4b) On MAIN.PY tab, replace with:

import telegram

bot = telegram.Bot('<REPLACE WITH BOT TOKEN>')

def webhook(request):
    if request.method == "POST":
        update = telegram.Update.de_json(request.get_json(force=True), bot)
        chat_id = update.message.chat.id

        bot.sendMessage(chat_id=chat_id, text=update.message.text)
    return True

4c) On REQUIREMENTS.TXT tab, add:

python-telegram-bot

4d) Finally, on Function to execute, change it to webhook.

5) Go ahead and click on Create.

6) Open a different tab on your browser, and type this URL, make sure to replace the Token and URL.

https://api.telegram.org/bot<REPLACE WITH BOT TOKEN>/setWebhook?url=<REPLACE WITH FUNCTION URL>

If you did it correctly you should get the following:

{"ok":true,"result":true,"description":"Webhook was set"}

7) That's it! Go talk to your Bot and it will echo back your message.

Bonus Tip

Alternatively you can use the gcloud command. Assuming you have src/main.py and src/requirements.txt, gcloud authenticated and with a Project ID set, you'd simply:

$ cd src
$ gcloud functions deploy webhook2 --runtime python37 --trigger-http

main.py

import telegram

bot = telegram.Bot('<REPLACE WITH BOT TOKEN>')

def webhook(request):
    if request.method == "POST":
        update = telegram.Update.de_json(request.get_json(force=True), bot)
        chat_id = update.message.chat.id

        bot.sendMessage(chat_id=chat_id, text=update.message.text)
    return True

requirements.txt

python-telegram-bot