Meme Wrangler Bot

Telegram bot that accepts memes (photos, GIF animations, videos) from the owner's private messages and schedules them into a channel at the next available slot among 11:00, 16:00, 21:00.

Setup

Option 1: Run with Docker (Recommended)

The easiest way to run the bot is using Docker:

1. Set up environment variables:

   cp .env.example .env
   nano .env  # Edit with your bot credentials
   

2. Run with Docker Compose:

   docker-compose up -d
   

3. View logs:

   docker-compose logs -f
   

4. Stop the bot:

   docker-compose down
   

For detailed Docker deployment instructions, including remote server deployment, see DOCKER_DEPLOY.md.

Option 2: Run Locally

1. Create a virtualenv and install dependencies:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Set environment variables:

export TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=123:ABC
export OWNER_ID=123456789
export CHANNEL_ID=@yourchannel  # or -1001234567890

3. Run the bot:

python bot.py

How it works

• Owner sends a photo/video/animation in the bot's DM.
• Bot stores the Telegram file_id and schedules it for the next available slot: 11:00, 16:00, 21:00 IST (India Standard Time). If there's an existing scheduled meme, new ones are scheduled after the last one using the same cycle.
• A background task posts due memes into the configured channel at the scheduled IST times.

Docker Implementation

This project includes full Docker support for easy deployment:

• Dockerfile: Creates a lightweight Python container with all dependencies
• docker-compose.yml: Simplifies running the bot with proper configuration
• Volume mounting: Database persists between container restarts in ./data directory
• Auto-restart: Container automatically restarts if it crashes
• Logging: Configured with log rotation (10MB max, 3 files)

The Docker implementation ensures consistent behavior across different environments and simplifies deployment to production servers.

Notes

• All times are in IST (India Standard Time, UTC+5:30) regardless of the server's timezone.
• Stored timestamps are Unix timestamps (UTC).
• Make sure the bot is admin in the channel to post messages.
• When using Docker, the database is stored in ./data/memes.db on the host machine.