How to Create a Secure Telegram Bot in PHP

Creating a Telegram bot in PHP is simple yet powerful. Telegram offers a rich Bot API that communicates using simple HTTPS requests. In this guide, we will set up a Webhook in PHP using PDO to log user queries and secure the endpoint.

Step 1: Get Bot Token from BotFather

Open Telegram, search for @BotFather, and write /newbot. Follow the prompts to get your API Token.

Step 2: Coding the Webhook

Create an index.php file. You will parse incoming JSON from Telegram:

$update = json_decode(file_get_contents("php://input"), TRUE);
$chat_id = $update["message"]["chat"]["id"];
$text = $update["message"]["text"];

Step 3: Secure the Webhook

Ensure that the request comes from Telegram IP ranges or use a secret token parameter in your URL, such as https://yourdomain.com/bot_webhook.php?token=SECRET_HASH.