NodeJS Telegram RSS Feed Channel Bot

Ever wanted to have a bot that posts new RSS feed entries to a channel or group on telegram? Well, here you go.

How to use

1. setup a bot from telegram's @botfather accounts
2. check the build arguments the Dockerfile accepts and edit to your demands
3. setup a cronjob on your machine/server to run the docker container every 120 minutes or so
4. enjoy the news on telegram 🤗

• Run using Docker
  • run (in a cron job maybe?)
  • Need to build it yourself?
  • No Docker?
• Concepts / Good to know

Dependencies

let's go easy on the dependencies, shall we?

• rss-parser
• Sequelize
• sqlite3
• telegraf

for all of the dev dependencies, see the package.json, but the most important ones are:

• eslint
• prettier
• mocha

Run using Docker

run (in a cron job maybe?)

docker run --rm \
  -v /path/to/telegram-rss-feed/db:/app/db \
  -e TELEGRAM_API_KEY=12345666:abcdefg \
  -e TELEGRAM_CHANNEL_OR_GROUP=your-channel-or-group \
  -e FEED_URL=https://test.test/awesomefeed.rss \
  ghcr.io/simonneutert/telegram-rss-feed:main

Need to build it yourself?

$ docker build . \
  --build-arg telegram_key=THIS123MY:TELEGRAMKEY \
  --build-arg telegram_channel_or_group=@channel_or_groupnumber_on_telegram \
  --build-arg feed_url=https://www.rss-feed.test/feed \
  -t mytelegramrssbot

$ docker run --rm \
  -v /path/to/telegram-rss-feed/db:/app/db \
  mytelegramrssbot

No Docker?

Make sure to set the ENV variables just as you need it.

$ mkdir mytelegramrssbot
$ cd mytelegramrssbot
$ npm init
$ npm install telegram-rss-feed --save
$ touch index.js

// content of index.js
const { Db } = require("telegram-rss-feed/lib/db");
const { parseFeed } = require("telegram-rss-feed/lib/parseFeed");
const { sendMessage } = require("telegram-rss-feed/lib/sendMessage");

Db.sync() // { force: true } will be useful if you need to start from scratch
  .then(() => {});

/**
 * this function auto calls itself in an async fashion
 */
(async () => {
  // you can also pass a custom function to handle the message sending
  await parseFeed(
    process.env.FEED_URL,
    sendMessage, {
      telegramApiKey: "12345666:abcdefg",
      telegramChannelOrGroup: "@your-channel-or-group",
    }
  );
})();

Then run it with:

$ node index.js

Concepts / Good to know

• docker host volume persistant sqlite database that uses a unique constraint, to not send duplicates into the channel.
• public channel messaging, but your bot needs admin privileges
• will work out-of-the-box with any standard compliant modern rss feed supported by rss-parser on npm