telegram-webhooks

This project gives you a nice DSL-like interface for the Telegram Bot API using webhooks.

I recommend you reading Telegrams very good Bot API documentation for details.

But tl;dr:
When using the polling method, you have to build an application that regularly asks the Telegram if there are any new messages. This approach works very well if you have a low traffic bot and/or are behind a firewall.

When using Webhooks, you register a callback-url at the Telegram API, which is called when new data is available. But, you need an publicly accessible URL for that, so you can't run that behind a firewall, but you can run it easily using a cloud service like Heroku.

This is a basic example setting up an echo bot. The most simple creature in the Bot Universe.

For a more complex example project see the TumblrFeedBot

The easiest way to try this is using a cloud service like Heroku.

You can create a new Telegram Bot by talking to @BotFather. More on this you will find in the Telegram Documentation.

Install it by hand, like:

gem install telegram-webhooks

Or let bundler do it for you:

gem 'telegram-webhooks'

# config.ru

require 'telegram'

Telegram.token = ENV['TELEGRAM_TOKEN']

class App < Bot
  on :echo do |update|
    update.message.chat.reply(update.message.text)
  end
end

run App.new

$ heroku config:set TELEGRAM_TOKEN=... 
$ git push heroku master

$ TELEGRAM_TOKEN="..." bundle exec rackup

In order to activate the Webhooks API you have to send a single POST request against their api specify a url where you want to receive new updates.

Telegram recommends to use your Telegram Token as a part of your URL to avoid other people tampering with your bot.

curl --data "url=https://your.bots.url/YOUR_TELEGRAM_TOKEN_HERE" https://api.telegram.org/botYOUR_TELEGRAM_TOKEN_HERE/setWebhook