Great question! You absolutely can automate the creation and configuration of Telegram bots programmatically, but there's a key caveat upfront: Telegram does not provide a public, official API for BotFather — BotFather is natively built around chat-based interactions. That said, you can simulate those chat flows to achieve automated bot creation, which is the standard approach for this use case.

How to implement it #

The core idea is to use Telegram's regular Bot API to mimic a user chatting with BotFather. Here's a step-by-step breakdown:

• First, get your personal Telegram account's API token: This is different from a bot's token — you'll use this to send messages to BotFather and receive its responses.
• Initiate the bot creation flow:
  1. Send the /newbot command to BotFather's chat ID (you can find this by manually messaging BotFather once, then calling the getUpdates API to retrieve the chat ID).
  2. Parse BotFather's responses to detect which step you're in (e.g., it'll first ask for the bot's display name, then its username which must end with bot).
  3. Send the required information (name, username) in sequence as you would manually.
  4. Capture the bot token that BotFather returns once setup is complete — this is your new bot's authentication token.

Critical considerations #

• Official support status: This simulation approach isn't officially endorsed by Telegram. BotFather's response structure or flow could change at any time, breaking your automation script.
• Account limits: Each Telegram account is restricted to creating a maximum of 20 bots (as of 2024), so keep this in mind for large-scale automation.
• Error handling: Build logic to handle common failures, like duplicate usernames or invalid input formats. BotFather will send clear error messages that you can parse and act on.

Example Python snippet #

Here's a simplified framework using the requests library to get you started:

import requests
import time

# Replace with your personal Telegram account's API token
PERSONAL_TOKEN = "your-personal-telegram-token"
BASE_API_URL = f"https://api.telegram.org/bot{PERSONAL_TOKEN}/"
BOT_FATHER_CHAT_ID = 123456789  # Retrieve this via getUpdates after messaging BotFather manually

def send_msg(chat_id, text):
    requests.post(
        f"{BASE_API_URL}sendMessage",
        json={"chat_id": chat_id, "text": text}
    )

def get_latest_update(offset=None):
    response = requests.get(
        f"{BASE_API_URL}getUpdates",
        params={"offset": offset, "timeout": 10}
    )
    return response.json()

# Start the bot creation flow
send_msg(BOT_FATHER_CHAT_ID, "/newbot")
time.sleep(1)

# Get BotFather's first prompt and send the bot name
updates = get_latest_update()
if updates["result"]:
    last_update_id = updates["result"][-1]["update_id"]
    # Check if the prompt asks for a name (simplified check)
    if "Choose a name for your bot" in updates["result"][-1]["message"]["text"]:
        send_msg(BOT_FATHER_CHAT_ID, "My Automated Bot")
        time.sleep(1)
        # Next step: send the username (must end with bot)
        send_msg(BOT_FATHER_CHAT_ID, "my_automated_bot_123_bot")
        # Finally, parse the response to extract the new bot token
        final_updates = get_latest_update(last_update_id + 1)
        for update in final_updates["result"]:
            if "Use this token to access the HTTP API:" in update["message"]["text"]:
                new_bot_token = update["message"]["text"].split("\n")[1].strip()
                print(f"New bot token: {new_bot_token}")

This is a basic example — you'll want to add more robust parsing logic, error handling, and retry mechanisms for production use.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者davioooh