Overview

The Polkadot Telegram Query Bot is a Telegram bot that queries and returns data to users from Polkadot and other Substrate-based chains. Users can interact with this by sending them command messages in private or group chats.

Built as part of the Build Polkadot bounty challenges, sponsored by the Web3 Foundation, under the Build Polkadot Challenge 2: User Tools category.

Repository

https://github.com/ayobuenavista/polkadot-telegram-query-bot

Technologies Used

• Telegraf
• polkadot.js

Deployed Test Version

A live version of the bot is running. Search for @polkadot_query_bot in Telegram.

Launching the Bot

Setup

To launch your own instance of the bot:

1) Clone the polkadot-telegram-query-bot repo.

$ git clone git@github.com:ayobuenavista/polkadot-telegram-query-bot.git

2) Install the required NPM packages.

$ npm install

3) Obtain a Telegram bot token using Telegram's BotFather. You can find a detailed guide on that here.

4) Create an .env file in the root directory, containing your Telegram bot token. Note: Omit the bot prefix in the Telegram token.

e.g.

TELEGRAM_TOKEN=xxxxxxxxx:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

5) Edit the node URIs in ./src/config/default.json to add in your node or node provider, or you can leave the current definitions as is. At the moment, only Polkadot and Kusama are supported.

Running

To run in development mode (restarts at every file change)

npm run dev

To run in production mode

npm run start

You should see something like:

Bot Commands

Send the following commands directly to the bot or in a group where the bot is present.

Note: if no chain is passed, Polkadot queried as default.

/balance

Returns the balance of an account

/balance <accountId> <optional: chain>

/blockInfo

Returns the block info at the provided height

/blockInfo <height> <optional: chain>

/chainInfo

Returns basic information of the Substrate chain

/chainInfo <optional: chain>

/councilInfo

Returns council information

/councilInfo <optional: chain>

/democracyInfo

Returns democracy information

/democracyInfo <optional: chain>

/electionsInfo

Returns elections information

/electionsInfo <optional: chain>

/intentionCount

Returns the number of validators waiting to validate

/intentionCount <optional: chain>

/intentions

Returns a range of validators that indicate their intention to validate (e.g. range: 0-10)

/intentions <range> <optional: chain>

/latestBlock

Returns the latest block information

/latestBlock <optional: chain>

/proposalInfo

Returns the information of a proposal by providing the proposal hash

/proposalInfo <hash> <optional: chain>

/proposals

Returns the list of proposals

/proposals <optional: chain>

/runtimeConstants

Returns the runtime constant values

/runtimeConstants <optional: chain>

/stakingInfo

Returns the staking information

/stakingInfo <optional: chain>

/sudoKey

Returns the sudo key accountId

/sudoKey <optional: chain>

/techComm

Returns the technical committee information

/techComm <optional: chain>

/techCommProposalInfo

Returns the information of a technical committee proposal by providing the proposal hash

/techCommProposalInfo <hash> <optional: chain>

/techCommProposals

Returns the list of technical committee proposals

/techCommProposals <optional: chain>

/validatorCount

Returns the number of active validators

/validatorCount <optional: chain>

/validators

Returns a range of active validators (e.g. range: 0-10)

/validators <range> <optional: chain>

Examples

To get balance information of an account:

To get the first 5 active validators in Kusama:

Get the chain information in Polkadot:

Get the council information in Kusama:

Other Notes

It was difficult to find a list of public node providers. Thankfully, https://polkadot.js.org/apps returns a list of public node endpoints in the node selection screen. When clicking custom endpoint, you can see the WebSocket URI of the currently selected endpoint.