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.

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.
• config.py – Loads BOT_TOKEN from env; exits if missing.
• handlers/ – Command and error handlers; add new handlers here.
• requirements.txt – Pinned dependencies (PTB with job-queue, python-dotenv).

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