How to Create a Telegram Bot: Step by Step with BotFather and Python

Updated: October 29, 2026 · 7 min read

Here is how to create a Telegram bot in a few minutes: open @BotFather, send /newbot, choose a name and a username that ends in bot, and copy the token BotFather gives you. That token is all your code needs to talk to the Telegram Bot API. This guide takes you from BotFather to a first message sent with curl and Python, then turns it into a tiny echo bot.

What you need

• A Telegram account in any app: phone, desktop or web.
• A terminal with curl, or Python 3 with the requests package (pip install requests).
• No server yet. During development your bot can fetch updates with getUpdates from any computer, even behind NAT. A public HTTPS server only matters once you switch to a webhook.

Step 1: create a Telegram bot with @BotFather

@BotFather is Telegram's own bot for creating and managing bots. This step needs no code:

1. Open t.me/BotFather and press Start. Use this link rather than search, so you don't end up in a look-alike account.
2. Send /newbot.
3. Enter a name, for example Weather Alerts. It is shown in chats and contacts, and you can change it later with /setname.
4. Enter a username, for example weather_alerts_bot: 5–32 characters, only Latin letters, digits and underscores, ending in bot (tetris_bot and TetrisBot both work). Usernames are not case sensitive and, unlike the name, can't be changed later.
5. BotFather confirms with a link to your bot, such as t.me/weather_alerts_bot, and the token.

If the username is taken or breaks the rules, BotFather simply asks for another one. Prefer buttons to commands? The @BotFather Mini App offers the same functions in a graphical interface.

Step 2: copy the token and keep it secret

The token looks like 123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours. Anyone who has it can control your bot: read its incoming messages, send messages in its name and change its settings. Keep it out of screenshots, public repositories and front-end code, and load it from an environment variable in real projects. If you lose the token or it leaks, see how to find, check and revoke a Telegram bot token.

Step 3: check the token with getMe

Every Bot API call has the form https://api.telegram.org/bot<token>/METHOD_NAME, with the word bot right before the token and no slash in between. getMe takes no parameters and is the quickest way to test a token:

curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours/getMe"

A valid token returns your bot's User object (shortened):

{
  "ok": true,
  "result": {
    "id": 123456789,
    "is_bot": true,
    "first_name": "Weather Alerts",
    "username": "weather_alerts_bot",
    "can_join_groups": true,
    "can_read_all_group_messages": false,
    "supports_inline_queries": false
  }
}

can_read_all_group_messages: false means privacy mode is on, which is the default. 401 Unauthorized means the token is wrong or revoked; 404 Not Found usually means a broken URL, typically a missing bot prefix. No terminal at hand? Open getMe in the Bot API Tester, paste the token and press Execute; the token stays in your browser.

Step 4: send /start and find your chat id

Bots can't start conversations, so message your bot first: open t.me/weather_alerts_bot (with your own username), press Start, which sends /start, and type any text. Then fetch the waiting updates:

curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours/getUpdates"

{
  "ok": true,
  "result": [
    {
      "update_id": 870123456,
      "message": {
        "message_id": 1,
        "from": {"id": 123456789, "is_bot": false, "first_name": "Alex"},
        "chat": {"id": 123456789, "first_name": "Alex", "type": "private"},
        "date": 1793266200,
        "text": "/start"
      }
    }
  ]
}

The number in message.chat.id is the chat id you need for sending messages; in a private chat it equals your user id. An empty result means there is nothing new: send another message and repeat the call. Group, channel and topic ids work differently, see how to get a Telegram chat id.

Step 5: send your first message with curl and Python

Call sendMessage with its two required parameters, chat_id and text:

curl -X POST "https://api.telegram.org/bot123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours/sendMessage" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"chat_id": 123456789, "text": "Hello from my new bot!"}'

The same in Python with requests:

import requests

TOKEN = "123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours"
API = f"https://api.telegram.org/bot{TOKEN}"

resp = requests.post(f"{API}/sendMessage",
                     json={"chat_id": 123456789, "text": "Hello from Python!"},
                     timeout=10).json()
if resp["ok"]:
    print("Sent message", resp["result"]["message_id"])
else:
    print("Error", resp["error_code"], resp["description"])

The message appears in your chat with the bot right away. Formatting, buttons and error handling are covered in how to send messages with the Bot API.

Step 6: a minimal Telegram bot in Python

A bot is just a loop: receive updates, react to them. This echo bot uses long polling (with timeout=30 each request waits up to 30 seconds for new updates) and confirms processed updates with offset:

import requests

TOKEN = "123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours"
API = f"https://api.telegram.org/bot{TOKEN}"
offset = None

while True:
    data = requests.get(f"{API}/getUpdates",
                        params={"offset": offset, "timeout": 30}, timeout=40).json()
    if not data["ok"]:
        raise SystemExit(f'{data["error_code"]}: {data["description"]}')
    for update in data["result"]:
        offset = update["update_id"] + 1  # confirm this update
        message = update.get("message")
        if message and "text" in message:
            requests.post(f"{API}/sendMessage", json={
                "chat_id": message["chat"]["id"],
                "text": f"You said: {message['text']}",
            }, timeout=10)

Save it as echo_bot.py, run python echo_bot.py, write to your bot and stop the script with Ctrl+C. Only one process can poll a token at a time: a second one fails with 409 Conflict.

Optional: description, about text and commands

• /setdescription: the text under "What can this bot do?" that users see in an empty chat with the bot (up to 512 characters).
• /setabouttext: the short bio on the bot's profile (up to 120 characters).
• /setuserpic: the profile picture.
• /setcommands: the command list users see when they type /. Send one command per line in the form start - Start the bot.

Commands can also be set from code with setMyCommands, which is handy in deploy scripts: up to 100 commands, each 1–32 characters of lowercase letters, digits and underscores, with a 1–256 character description.

curl -X POST "https://api.telegram.org/bot123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours/setMyCommands" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"commands": [
        {"command": "start", "description": "Start the bot"},
        {"command": "help", "description": "How to use this bot"}
      ]}'

Planning to use the bot in groups? /setjoingroups controls whether it can be added to groups at all, and /setprivacy toggles privacy mode, in which the bot receives only commands meant for it, replies to its messages and service messages.

Next steps: webhooks, libraries and Mini Apps

• Polling or webhook. getUpdates is perfect for development. In production many bots switch to a webhook, where Telegram POSTs each update to your HTTPS endpoint; the two methods are mutually exclusive. See how to set up a Telegram bot webhook.
• Libraries. For anything bigger than an echo bot, use a library that handles updates, routing and errors: python-telegram-bot, aiogram or pyTelegramBotAPI for Python; grammY or Telegraf for Node.js; telebot or go-telegram-bot-api for Go.
• Mini Apps. A bot can open a full web interface inside Telegram. Register one with /newapp and follow how to test a Telegram Mini App.

Troubleshooting a new bot