Enhanced Telegram News Aggregation Bot

This service monitors ConsortiumNews, ProPublica, and Truthout for new articles, generates AI summaries, and posts them to a Telegram channel. Now includes enhanced bot commands for monitoring and control.

🚀 New User? Check out the Quick Start Guide for a 5-minute setup!

🚀 Features

• Automated News Monitoring: Continuously monitors multiple news sources
• AI-Powered Summaries: Generates concise summaries using Google's Gemini AI
• Enhanced Bot Commands: Full control and monitoring via Telegram commands
• Comprehensive Logging: Detailed activity, error, and performance logs
• Remote Management: Start, stop, and restart processes remotely

🤖 Bot Commands

Core Commands

• /log <type> - Download various log files as .txt documents
• /status - Show bot and process status with uptime and memory usage
• /rerun - Restart the entire news aggregation process
• /stop - Completely shut down the bot and all processes
• /help - Show all available commands

Log Types Available

• activity - Full activity log (debug.log)
• errors - Error messages (errors.log)
• articles - Published articles log (new_articles.log)
• fetch - Article fetch monitoring
• parse - Article parsing monitoring
• ai - AI processing monitoring
• telegram - Telegram message delivery monitoring
• memory - Memory usage monitoring
• performance - Performance metrics

Usage Examples

/log activity          # Download full activity log
/log errors           # Download error log
/log articles         # Download published articles log
/status               # Check system status
/rerun                # Restart if something is stuck
/stop                 # Emergency shutdown

Setup

1. Configure your environment:

# Required environment variables in .env
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=your_bot_token_from_botfather
TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID=your_chat_or_channel_id
GOOGLE_API_KEY=your_google_ai_api_key

2. Install dependencies:

npm install

3. Start the enhanced bot with news aggregation:

npm start                 # Full service with bot commands (recommended)

Or choose a specific mode:

npm run bot              # Bot commands only (no automatic news checking)
npm run original         # Original main.js behavior
npm run test            # Test Telegram connectivity

🔧 Running Modes

Full Service Mode (Recommended)

npm start

• Starts enhanced bot with all commands
• Runs news aggregation every 30 minutes
• Full monitoring and logging
• Remote control via Telegram commands

Bot-Only Mode

npm run bot

• Only starts bot for manual control
• Use /rerun command to trigger news aggregation
• Perfect for testing or manual operation

Original Mode

npm run original

• Runs original main.js once and exits
• No bot commands or continuous monitoring

📊 Monitoring & Logs

The enhanced system provides comprehensive logging:

Standard Logs (logs/ directory)

• debug.log - Full activity log
• errors.log - Error messages only
• new_articles.log - Published articles
• terminal.log - General application logs

Enhanced Monitoring (logs/monitor/ directory)

• fetch_monitor.log - Article fetching attempts
• parse_monitor.log - HTML parsing results
• ai_monitor.log - AI processing status
• telegram_monitor.log - Message delivery status
• memory_monitor.log - Memory usage tracking
• performance_monitor.log - Performance metrics

Access Logs via Bot

Use /log <type> command to download any log file instantly to your Telegram chat.

🔒 Security Notes

• Never commit the .env file to version control
• Keep your API keys secret and secure
• Regularly rotate your API keys
• Monitor your API usage to prevent unauthorized access
• Bot commands are restricted to the configured TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID only

🛠️ Development

The project uses environment variables for all sensitive configuration. When developing:

1. Always use config.js to access environment variables
2. Never hardcode API keys or tokens
3. Use the .gitignore file to prevent committing sensitive files
4. Test with npm run test before deployment

📁 Project Structure

├── enhanced_main.js          # Enhanced main script with bot integration
├── bot_controller.js         # Telegram bot command handler
├── bot_launcher.js          # Standalone bot launcher
├── main.js                  # Original main script
├── sender.js                # Telegram message sender
├── ProPublica/              # ProPublica news source
├── consortiumnews/          # ConsortiumNews source
├── utils/                   # Utility modules
│   ├── config.js           # Environment configuration
│   ├── logger.js           # Logging utilities
│   ├── monitoring.js       # Enhanced monitoring
│   └── ...
└── logs/                   # Log files
    └── monitor/            # Enhanced monitoring logs

🔄 Process Management

The enhanced bot supports full process lifecycle management:

• Start: Automatically starts news aggregation
• Monitor: Real-time status via /status command
• Restart: Use /rerun to restart stuck processes
• Stop: Graceful shutdown with /stop command
• Logs: Instant access to all logs via /log commands

🆘 Troubleshooting

Bot Not Responding

1. Check bot token in .env file
2. Verify chat ID is correct
3. Use /status to check if process is running
4. Try /rerun to restart

Missing Logs

/log help              # See available log types
/log activity          # Download main activity log

Process Issues

/status                # Check process status
/rerun                 # Restart news aggregation

Emergency Stop

/stop                  # Complete shutdown