TelegramButler

Invite this butler to your flat share's / family's telegram group and it will assist you with your daily tasks!

Trash reminder

Every day at a specified time, it will check the ics calendar file provided by the public services. If a trash can is due the next morning, it will send a notification in the group. After taking out the trash, just text \done. Otherwise, the bot will remind you later.

Birthday reminder

Never forget another group member's birthday again! A cheers will be posted at the very day. \all_birthdays lists all stored birthdays.

Movie watchlist

Saturday night and you don't know which film to watch? Just tell the Butler all your ideas and then pick one later. \add_film \remove_film \random_film \list_films

Talk anonymously

Don't want to blame your roomies in person for not cleaning the bath? Let the Butler do the job anonymously! Just tell it in a private chat and it will be reposted in the group chat. \talk bla bla bla

Cake

Let the bot decide who has to bake a cake! \cake

How to

This script needs to run 24/7. A raspberry pi is a energy-saving solution for this purpose.

Follow this tutorial on how to create a new bot.

Copy the example_config.yaml and rename it to config.yaml. Adapt it to your needs: Fill in the bot token, names and birthdates in the given format, also adjust the notification times etc.

Add an iCalendar file and call it waste_calendar.ics.

Finally, run bot.py. Alternatively, you can create a systemd service that runs update_and_run.sh at startup.

For auto-completion of the telegram commands do the following:

• Text /setcommands to the BotFather bot
• Select this bot
• Send the following text:

hello - Say hello
birthdays - List all registered birthdays
cake - Whose turn is it to bake the next cake?
done - Disable the current reminder
next_birthday - Whose birthday is next?
next_trash - When is the next trash can due?
talk - Tell me something in a private chat, and I'll forward it anonymously to everyone!
add_film - Add a film to our watchlist
random_film - It does what you think it does...
list_films - Lists the entire watchlist
remove_film - Removes the respective film from the watchlist

Docker (Quick Start)

Run the bot in a container with your local config and data mounted.

• Prerequisites: Docker and Docker Compose
• Prepare config: copy example_config.yaml to config.yaml and fill values. Place waste_calendar.ics and watchlist.yaml.
• Build & start:
  • docker compose up -d --build
• Logs: docker compose logs -f
• Stop: docker compose down

Token options:

• Keep token in config.yaml (mounted read-only), or
• Set TELEGRAM_TOKEN in compose, or
• Create secrets/telegram_token with the token and set in compose:
  • TELEGRAM_TOKEN_FILE=/run/secrets/telegram_token
  • Mount: ./secrets/telegram_token:/run/secrets/telegram_token:ro

See docker-compose.yml for the service definition.