ChatGPT Telegram Bot — legacy Python example

A historical Python Telegram bot project, originally created for early OpenAI completion models and the older python-telegram-bot API.

Maintenance notice (October 2026): This code demonstrates the older integration style. Its original completion endpoint, model settings, and Telegram dependency patterns may no longer run with current packages. Treat it as a legacy reference, not a tested modern production bot. For a newer Node.js sample with the current OpenAI API, see chatgpt-bot-telegram.

Security

Credentials are now read only from environment variables. The bot no longer prints keys to the console and no longer embeds fallback key strings in the script.

• OPENAI_KEY — API key from your OpenAI account.
• TELEGRAM_KEY — Telegram bot token issued by BotFather.

Set both variables in your environment before starting the bot. If either variable is missing, startup fails with a useful error message. Do not put real keys in a public fork or issue.

git clone https://github.com/harshitethic/ChatGPT-Telegram-Bot.git
cd ChatGPT-Telegram-Bot
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env locally; keep credentials out of Git.
set -a; . ./.env; set +a

Note: Modern Python/OpenAI/Telegram releases have breaking API changes relative to this legacy example. Installation of the old dependencies and end-to-end bot behavior are not covered by the current checks; updating those integrations requires a separate migration. The old Heroku dyno instructions have been removed because that deployment workflow no longer represents a reliable supported setup.

Source structure

• harshitethic.py — historical bot handlers and conversation state.
• config.py — environment validation with explicit missing-key errors.
• tests/test_config.py — isolated credential configuration tests.

Verify without API credentials

python3 -m compileall -q config.py harshitethic.py tests
python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -v

These checks need only Python's standard library. They verify syntax and configuration—not the legacy API's compatibility with live Telegram/OpenAI services.

Reporting issues

Please provide a minimal reproducer, Python and dependency versions, and redacted logs. Never include tokens or personal chat data. See SECURITY.md.