respondedorbot

An AI-powered Telegram bot playing "el gordo" — a blunt, politically incorrect Argentine character who answers everything in a single lowercase phrase using Argentine slang.

t.me/respondedorbot

Features

• AI chat: configurable personality with web search, powered by Qwen via OpenRouter
• Market data: /prices, /usd, /petroleo, /devo, /powerlaw, /rainbow
• BCRA economic data: /bcra, /variables
• Media: audio transcription (Whisper) tries Groq free then paid; image description tries Groq free then paid, then OpenRouter
• Utilities: /random, /convertbase, /time, /gm, /gn
• AI credits billing: Telegram Stars (/topup, /balance, /transfer)
• Link enrichment: URLs get metadata injected into AI context
• Agentic tools: AI can call tools (price lookup, calculator, web fetch, task scheduling) during conversations
• Scheduled tasks: /tareas, /tasks — create, list, and delete one-shot or recurring reminders via AI or inline buttons

Quick Start

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your keys
python run_polling.py

Configuration

Variable	Description
BOT_SYSTEM_PROMPT	Complete AI personality prompt
BOT_TRIGGER_WORDS	Comma-separated keywords that trigger responses in groups
TELEGRAM_TOKEN	Bot token from @BotFather
TELEGRAM_USERNAME	Bot username
REDIS_HOST / REDIS_PORT / REDIS_PASSWORD	Redis cache
SUPABASE_POSTGRES_URL	Pooled Supabase Postgres URL (for AI credits)
COINMARKETCAP_KEY	CoinMarketCap API key
GROQ_API_KEY	Paid Groq API key for vision/transcription (used after free tier)
GROQ_FREE_API_KEY	Optional free-tier Groq key for vision/transcribe
OPENROUTER_API_KEY	OpenRouter API key used for chat/vision fallback
CF_AIG_TOKEN	Cloudflare AI Gateway token forwarded to OpenRouter requests
GIPHY_API_KEY	Giphy API key for /gm and /gn
ADMIN_CHAT_ID	Telegram chat ID for error reports
FRIENDLY_INSTANCE_NAME	Instance name for admin reports

Provider contract

• vision and transcription try free Groq first, then paid Groq
• vision falls back to OpenRouter if both Groq accounts are exhausted
• transcription stops at paid Groq (no OpenRouter fallback)
• chat uses Qwen via OpenRouter exclusively (no Groq)

Project layout

• api/ - application code
  • api/tools/ - agentic tool registry and implementations (price lookup, calculator, web fetch, task scheduling)
  • api/ai_pipeline.py - AI response handling and cleanup
  • api/ai_billing.py - AI credits billing system
  • api/message_handler.py - message routing and processing
  • api/index.py - core bot logic, commands, provider integration
• quadlets/ - Podman Quadlet container definitions
• systemd/ - systemd service and timer units
• run_polling.py - bot entrypoint
• run_maintenance.py - maintenance entrypoint (run inside the container)
• tests/ - test suite
• Containerfile - container image definition

Deployment (Podman + systemd)

Prerequisites (Debian/Ubuntu)

sudo apt install -y podman uidmap dbus-user-session slirp4netns fuse-overlayfs
sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash respondedorbot
sudo loginctl enable-linger respondedorbot

Setup (as respondedorbot user)

git clone https://github.com/astrovm/respondedorbot
cd respondedorbot

mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/systemd
cp quadlets/* ~/.config/containers/systemd/

mkdir -p ~/respondedorbot
cp .env.example ~/respondedorbot/.env
# Edit ~/respondedorbot/.env — set REDIS_HOST=respondedorbot-redis

export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u)
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}/bus

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user start respondedorbot-redis.service
systemctl --user start respondedorbot.service

Persist across reboots

systemctl --user enable fails on Quadlet-generated units on some distros — use symlinks instead:

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user/default.target.wants
ln -sf ~/.config/containers/systemd/respondedorbot.container \
  ~/.config/systemd/user/default.target.wants/respondedorbot.container
ln -sf ~/.config/containers/systemd/respondedorbot-redis.container \
  ~/.config/systemd/user/default.target.wants/respondedorbot-redis.container
systemctl --user daemon-reload

Maintenance timers

cp systemd/respondedorbot-maintenance.* ~/.config/systemd/user/
cp systemd/respondedorbot-podman-prune.* ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now respondedorbot-maintenance.timer
systemctl --user enable --now respondedorbot-podman-prune.timer

Useful commands

journalctl --user -fu respondedorbot.service
systemctl --user status respondedorbot.service --no-pager
systemctl --user stop respondedorbot.service respondedorbot-redis.service
systemctl --user enable --now podman-auto-update.timer
podman exec systemd-respondedorbot python /app/run_maintenance.py

Tests

pytest -q