Duty Teller (Telegram Bot)

A minimal Telegram bot boilerplate using python-telegram-bot v22 with the Application API.

Get a bot token

1. Open Telegram and search for @BotFather.
2. Send /newbot and follow the prompts to create a bot.
3. Copy the token BotFather gives you.

Setup

1. Clone and enter the project

   cd duty-teller
   

2. Create a virtual environment (recommended)

   python -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate   # Linux/macOS
   # or: venv\Scripts\activate  # Windows
   

3. Install dependencies

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

4. Configure the bot

   cp .env.example .env
   

   Edit .env and set BOT_TOKEN to the token from BotFather.

5. Miniapp access (calendar)
   To allow access to the calendar miniapp, set ALLOWED_USERNAMES to a comma-separated list of Telegram usernames (without @). Users in ADMIN_USERNAMES also have access; the admin role is reserved for future bot commands and API features. If both are empty, no one can open the calendar.

6. Optional env

   • DATABASE_URL – DB connection (default: sqlite:///data/duty_teller.db).
   • MINI_APP_BASE_URL – Base URL of the miniapp (for documentation / CORS).
   • MINI_APP_SKIP_AUTH – Set to 1 to allow /api/duties without Telegram initData (dev only; insecure).
   • CORS_ORIGINS – Comma-separated allowed origins for CORS, or leave unset for *.

Run

python main.py

The bot runs in polling mode. Send /start or /help to your bot in Telegram to test.

Run with Docker

Ensure .env exists (e.g. cp .env.example .env) and contains BOT_TOKEN.

• Dev (volume mount; code changes apply without rebuild):

  docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build
  

  Stop with Ctrl+C or docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml down.

• Prod (no volume; runs the built image; restarts on failure):

  docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d --build
  

  For production deployments you may use Docker secrets or your orchestrator’s env instead of a .env file.

Project layout

• main.py – Builds the Application, registers handlers, runs polling and FastAPI in a thread.
• config.py – Loads BOT_TOKEN, DATABASE_URL, ALLOWED_USERNAMES, ADMIN_USERNAMES, CORS_ORIGINS, etc. from env; exits if BOT_TOKEN is missing.
• api/ – FastAPI app (/api/duties), Telegram initData validation, static webapp mount.
• db/ – SQLAlchemy models, session, repository, schemas.
• alembic/ – Migrations (use config.DATABASE_URL).
• handlers/ – Command and error handlers; add new handlers here.
• webapp/ – Miniapp UI (calendar, duty list); served at /app.
• requirements.txt – Pinned dependencies (PTB, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Alembic, etc.).

To add commands, define async handlers in handlers/commands.py (or a new module) and register them in handlers/__init__.py.

Tests

Install dev dependencies and run pytest:

pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
pytest

Tests cover api/telegram_auth (validate_init_data), config (is_admin, can_access_miniapp), and the API (date validation, 403/200 with mocked auth).