Send Telegram Message / File

Your JARVIS texts people and posts to channels as you — from your personal account via Telethon, not a bot token. Bots can't DM people who never started them; your account can.

One-time Setup

1. Get api_id and api_hash at https://my.telegram.org → API development tools
2. Store them in ~/.jarvis/telegram.env:

TG_API_ID=1234567
TG_API_HASH=your_hash_here
TG_SESSION=~/.jarvis/telegram.session

3. First run asks for your phone + login code, then the session file keeps you logged in. Never commit the session file or the .env — treat both like passwords.

Send

import os
from telethon.sync import TelegramClient

api_id = int(os.environ["TG_API_ID"])
api_hash = os.environ["TG_API_HASH"]
session = os.path.expanduser(os.environ.get("TG_SESSION", "~/.jarvis/telegram"))

with TelegramClient(session, api_id, api_hash) as client:
    # message
    client.send_message("@username", "text")
    # file with caption
    client.send_file("@username", "/path/to/file.pdf", caption="here you go")
    # channel/group by ID
    client.send_message(-1001234567890, "post text")

Load the env first: set -a; source ~/.jarvis/telegram.env; set +a before running the script.

Rules

• Confirm after sending: "Sent to @username"
• On error: retry once, then report the actual error — don't silently fail
• Anything outward-facing (channels, clients, strangers) → show the user the draft before sending, unless they already approved the exact content