Functional code sample — step by step

Telegram AI Bot

A complete, working Telegram bot that answers every message through your own gateway (same provider chain, same automatic failover as the website chatbot). Two ready options: a serverless webhook on Cloudflare Pages (recommended) and a local polling script that runs on any computer. No provider keys ever touch Telegram or your local machine.

Webhook: serverless, free Polling: zero dependency Replies in Bangla & English

How the webhook works

Telegram POSTs every incoming message to /api/telegram/<SECRET> — a Cloudflare Pages Function that asks your own /api/v1/chat core (with failover across all configured providers) and sends the answer back via sendMessage. Long answers are split into Telegram-sized chunks; a per-chat rate limit blocks loops.

1. Create the bot (2 minutes)

Open Telegram and message @BotFather.
Send /newbot, choose a display name and a username (must end in bot).
BotFather replies with a token like 7216334:AAH8k… — that is your TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN.

2. Add the env vars to Cloudflare Pages

Dashboard → Workers & Pages → aigateway → Settings → Variables and Secrets (add to Production and Preview):

env

TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=7216334:AAH8k-your-real-token-from-botfather
TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_SECRET=pick-any-long-random-string-here
# optional:
TELEGRAM_BOT_USERNAME=mygatewaybot
TELEGRAM_MAX_TOKENS=1200

The complete importable file lives on the Env Setup page — Telegram vars are already included there.

3. Register the webhook (one command)

Replace the two placeholders and run once — the bot goes live immediately:

bash

curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot<TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN>/setWebhook" \
  --data-urlencode "url=https://aigatewaybd.pages.dev/api/telegram/<TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_SECRET>" \
  --data-urlencode "allowed_updates=["message"]"

Check it any time: open /api/telegram (status JSON) or run getWebhookInfo the same way.

4. Test it

Open your bot in Telegram, press Start, then send anything — Bangla or English:

Telegram — your bot

you → বাংলায় একটি ছড়া লেখো
bot → আকাশে তারা জ্বলে রাতে,
নদীর জলে ছায়া ভাসে হাতে…
you → Explain CORS in one paragraph
bot → CORS lets a browser trust another origin…

5. Alternative: local polling bot (no Cloudflare)

The repo ships a zero-dependency Node script at examples/telegram-bot-poller.mjs — it long-polls Telegram and answers via your gateway's public /ask endpoint. Run it on any machine with Node 18+:

bash

export TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN="7216334:AAH8k-your-token"
export GATEWAY_BASE="https://aigatewaybd.pages.dev"
node examples/telegram-bot-poller.mjs

6. All Telegram env vars

Variable	Required	Purpose
`TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN`	Yes	Bot token from @BotFather.
`TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_SECRET`	Recommended	Secret path segment — updates to other paths get 403.
`TELEGRAM_BOT_USERNAME`	—	Shown in the /start welcome text.
`TELEGRAM_MAX_TOKENS`	—	Reply length cap (default 1200).
`TELEGRAM_SYSTEM_PROMPT`	—	Override the bot's whole personality/system prompt.

Troubleshooting

No reply at all → run getWebhookInfo; if last_error_message mentions 403, the secret path in the webhook URL doesn't match the env var.
"TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN is not configured" → add the variable in Cloudflare and redeploy.
Error replies from the bot → the providers themselves are failing; check API Status. The bot message shows the exact error code.