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phåńtøm šłîçk
phåńtøm šłîçk

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Building Telegram Bots in Ruby Just Got Easier with Telegem v2

#ruby #telegram #api #beginners

If you're building Telegram bots in Ruby, you've probably faced:

  • Complex API patterns that don't feel like Ruby
  • Session management headaches
  • Deployment confusion
  • Outdated documentation

I was there too. After building several production bots, I extracted the patterns into Telegem - a framework that makes bot development actually enjoyable in Ruby.

The "Aha!" Moment

The breakthrough came when I realized most bot frameworks are ports from other languages. Ruby deserves better. So I built something that embraces Ruby idioms:

# Before: Fighting the API
bot.api.send_message(chat_id: message.chat.id, text: "Hello")

# After: Writing Ruby
ctx.reply("Hello!")  # Everything in context
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Three Patterns That Changed Everything

  1. Context-Oriented Design

Every handler gets a ctx object with everything you need:

· The message
· The user
· The chat
· Session storage
· Reply methods

No more passing around IDs or digging through nested objects.

  1. Scene System for Conversations

Multi-step interactions (surveys, orders, onboarding) are now declarative:

bot.scene(:onboarding) do |scene|
  scene.step(:ask_name) { |ctx| ctx.reply("What's your name?") }
  scene.step(:ask_age) { |ctx| ctx.reply("How old are you?") }
end
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The framework handles state, progression, and cleanup.

  1. Cloud-First Deployment 
# One line for any cloud platform
bot.webhook.run  # Works on Render, Railway, Heroku, Fly.io
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No more nginx configs or manual webhook setup.

Try It Yourself

The best part? You can try it in 2 minutes:

gem install telegem
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Create bot.rb:

require 'telegem'

bot = Telegem.new(ENV['BOT_TOKEN'])
bot.command('start') { |ctx| ctx.reply("Hi!") }
bot.start_polling
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Check out the full documentation for more patterns and examples.

Why This Matters for Ruby

As Ruby developers, we care about developer experience. Our tools should:

· Get out of our way
· Follow Ruby conventions
· Scale when we need them to
· Have clear documentation

Telegem is my attempt to bring that philosophy to Telegram bot development. If you're building bots, give it a try and let me know what you think!

What patterns have you found helpful in bot development? Share in the comments!

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