telegram-relay

A lightweight Rust HTTP server that relays messages to Telegram via a bot. Useful as a simple push notification service — point any webhook, CI pipeline, or script at it and get messages straight to your phone.

Endpoints

Method	Path	Description
POST	/	Send a Telegram message
GET	/health	Returns {"status": "ok"}

If path_prefix is set in the config (e.g. "path_prefix": "secret"), all endpoints move under that prefix: POST /secret, GET /secret/health.

Setup

1. Create a bot with @BotFather and grab the token.
2. Copy the sample config and fill it in:

   cp config.sample.json config.json

3. Build and run:

   cargo build --release
   ./target/release/telegram-relay
   # or: cargo run --release -- /path/to/config.json

4. On first run the app waits for you to send /start to your bot in Telegram. Once it sees a message from the configured username it resolves and caches the telegram_chat_id in your config file.

Usage

The body is sent directly as the message text. JSON is also supported.

# plain text (shortest form)
curl -d 'deploy finished' http://127.0.0.1:3000

# JSON
curl -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"message": "deploy finished"}' http://127.0.0.1:3000

Formatting

Set the telegram-parse-mode header to enable Telegram formatting:

# MarkdownV2
curl -H 'telegram-parse-mode: markdown' \
  -d '*bold* _italic_' http://127.0.0.1:3000

# HTML
curl -H 'telegram-parse-mode: html' \
  -d '<b>bold</b> <i>italic</i>' http://127.0.0.1:3000

Config

Field	Required	Description
listen_addr	yes	Address to bind (e.g. 127.0.0.1:3000)
telegram_bot_token	yes	Bot token from BotFather
telegram_username	yes	Telegram username to resolve chat ID for
telegram_chat_id	no	Resolved automatically on first run
path_prefix	no	Prefix for all routes (e.g. "secret" → /secret)