The Devs Bot: Group Moderation on Telegram

Your group grows, and so does the junk: ads for other channels, bots someone added without asking, arguments that need to stop. The Devs Bot is the working instance of an open-source moderator that a developer community wrote for its own chats. 🛡️

You can simply use its commands in the network's groups, or study the source code and run a copy of your own.

Where it came from

The bot was built for The Devs Network group and is called The Guard. It is written in JavaScript, released under the AGPL-3.0 license, and the source is public.

The project is alive: its latest release added custom commands in warning and ban messages, plus a temporary permission to post an ad.

What it handles on its own

Without any effort from you, the bot cleans a group of typical junk:

• Ads. Removes ads for channels and groups and warns the poster.
• Foreign bots. Kicks bots that users added to the chat.
• Service clutter. Deletes commands and temporary replies so the feed stays clean.
• Sync. Decisions apply at once across all groups of one owner.

Three roles and a couple dozen commands

Permissions are split simply: owner, admin, and everyone else. That keeps full access away from random people.

• For everyone: /staff lists admins, /link gives the group link, /groups lists the network's groups, /report calls a moderator, and /help and /commands show the list.
• For admins: /warn, /ban, /unban, /unwarn, /nowarns, /del, /permit, and /user.
• For the owner: adding and removing admins, making the bot leave a group, hiding a group from the list.

If you send /ban or /warn as a reply to a message, that message is deleted too. You can target a person by mention or by numeric ID.

Want the same in your group

The code is open, so you can deploy the bot yourself. You need Node.js 18 or newer and a token from Telegram's official bot-creation service.

1. Create a bot and save its token.
2. Download the source and install dependencies with npm install.
3. Copy the settings file and edit it to your needs.
4. Start the bot with npm start.
5. Add it to your group with administrator rights.

A Docker setup exists too, if you prefer it. 🐳

Shared instance or your own

The shared instance suits groups in The Devs network, where everything is configured. For your own community, run your own bot: then the rules and the admin list are in your hands.

The AGPL license asks you to link the source code in your bot's bio. Modified versions must link to their own source.

Good habits for a moderator

Automation does not replace common sense. Warn before banning, explain the reason, and pin the rules in a message.

Grant admin rights only to people you trust, because someone with them can delete messages and ban members across all of an owner's groups. 👍