This project was based on an ugly hack over an existing proper Telegram client to do its job, so I'd avoid using it unless you need it for some specific purpose. Using a proper adapter over the Bot API like https://github.com/lukefx/hubot-telegram is probably a better idea.

This is a Hubot adapter for Telegram.

As there are not any fully-working Telegram client implementations in Node right now, it uses tg to send and receive messages.

It is composed of:

• a Hubot adapter (this npm module) which exposes some endpoints on Hubot's own HTTP server to receive messages, and connects to tg telnet interface to send them.
• a simple Lua script to be loaded inside tg which will forward incoming messages to Hubot.

• Sending/receiving chat messages
• Sending/receiving group messages
• Sending multiline messages (not supported on tg telnet interface)
• Sending/receiving secret chat messages
• Sending images and media

Install tg by cloning the code and compiling it (use the latest commit from master). Make sure you have Lua installed, so tg is compiled with Lua support.

Next, you will need an unused phone number to create a Telegram account. You can get one by signing up with Twilio and creating a US telephone number.

Next, create an account with telegram-cli. When it sends an SMS, look in the Twilio account logs to see thte

# Suppose your number is (333) 444-5555
$ cd /path/to/tg
$ ./bin/telegram-cli -k tg-server.pub
phone number: 13334445555
register [Y/n]: y
First name: Hubot
Last name: Smith
code ('call' for phone call): <type the code from the sms>
User Hubot Smith online (was online [2015/01/12 23:33:20])

This will create ~/.telegram-cli. Next, confirm it works by sending yourself a message:

# telegram-cli provides tab completion to help
$ ./bin/telegram-cli -k tg-server.pub
> add_contact  447777888888 your name
your name
User your name offline (was online [2015/01/12 08:26:13])
> msg your_name hello world

luasocket is often available as 'luasocket' or 'lua-socket' from your operating system package manager:

$ sudo pacman -S lua-socket

Alternatively, install a Lua package manager, such as luarocks, and use that:

$ sudo pacman -S luarocks
$ luarocks install luasocket

If this works, you should be able to require it in Lua:

$ lua
> require "socket"
>

Setup a Hubot:

$ npm install -g hubot coffee-script yo generator-hubot
$ mkdir -p /path/to/hubot
$ cd /path/to/hubot
$ yo hubot

You will want to commit your Hubot to git.

Install this adapter:

$ npm install zenitram/hubot-tg --save

In one terminal, start telegram-cli on a specific port:

$ cd /path/to/hubot
$ cd node_modules/hubot-tg
$ /path/to/tg/bin/telegram-cli -s hubot.lua -P 1123

In another terminal, start Hubot. If you aren't using port 1123, you'll need to specify it with HUBOT_TG_PORT.

$ cd /path/to/hubot
$ bin/hubot -a tg

You can set HUBOT_TG_HOST and HUBOT_TG_PORT env variables to set how Hubot should connect to tg.

You can set the env variable TG_HUBOT_URL to where to find Hubot.

• @yagop for telegram-bot, which inspired this