Postak

Turn a Telegram channel into a personal AI chat list.

Start a chat with /new. Each post becomes a conversation title; its comment thread is the chat. Postak replies as you type and names the post after the first reply.

Caution

Postak is under active development. APIs, commands, and storage may change.

Features

• Channel as chat list — each /new post becomes an auto-titled conversation.
• Rich streaming replies — rich Telegram messages: tables, checklists, ...
• Per-thread memory — each conversation keeps its own context.
• multi-channel support · Custom prompts · Commenter mentions · Scoped access · Thread tools · Pluggable models and storage

How it works

1. Send /new in your channel — or in its discussion group — to start a conversation.
2. Telegram forwards the post into its discussion group as a comment thread.
3. Reply in the thread — Postak answers, streaming as it types.
4. The first reply auto-titles the post, so your feed reads like a chat list.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• A Telegram bot (@BotFather) and a channel with a linked discussion group
• An OpenAI-compatible LLM endpoint

Start in five minutes

1. In Telegram, create a channel and enable comments by linking a discussion group. Add your bot as an admin of both.

Important

Turn the bot's privacy mode off so it can see comments: in @BotFather run /setprivacy → select your bot → Disable. If the bot was already in the group, remove and re-add it after changing this.

2. Configure and run:

uv sync
cp .env.example .env    # fill in BOT_TOKEN, TARGET_CHANNEL_ID, LLM_MODEL, …
uv run postak

# or, from PyPI:
#   pip install postak
#   postak    # reads .env from the current directory

3. Send /new in your channel or discussion group, then reply in the new thread.

Tip

To serve another channel later, link its discussion group in Telegram, then either run /postak add in that group or just send /new there — no restart needed. See Admin commands.

Configuration

Postak reads settings from the environment (via a .env file):

Variable	Required	Default	Description
BOT_TOKEN	✔	—	Telegram bot token from @BotFather
TARGET_CHANNEL_ID		—	Channel id(s) to serve, comma-separated (e.g. -1001234567890,-1009876543210). Leave empty and a Postak admin can add channels later — see Admin commands
LLM_MODEL	✔	—	Model name, e.g. gpt-4o-mini
LLM_ENDPOINT		OpenAI API	Base URL of an OpenAI-compatible endpoint
LLM_API_KEY		not-needed	API key for the LLM endpoint
POSTAK_ADMINS		—	Comma-separated Telegram user ids who may manage Postak. Required if TARGET_CHANNEL_ID is empty, since that's the only way to add a channel
DATABASE_URL		sqlite+aiosqlite:///postak.db	Store URL: a SQLite path, or :memory:
HISTORY_WINDOW		20	Max recent messages kept as context (the system prompt is always kept)

Library usage

from aiogram import Bot, Dispatcher

from postak import OpenAIGenerator, Postak

postak = Postak(
    generator=OpenAIGenerator(model="gpt-4o-mini", api_key="..."),
    store="sqlite+aiosqlite:///postak.db",
    channels=[-1001234567890],
    admins=[123456789],
)

bot = Bot("telegram-token")
dp = Dispatcher()

postak.attach(dp)
dp.run_polling(bot)

Admin commands

Postak admins manage everything with /postak (/postak help lists it all):

Access

• admin list — show admins · admin add|remove <user_id> — grant or revoke rights
• access list — show all access rules
• access allow|revoke <user_id> global|group|thread — per-user access
• access public on|off global|group|thread — open or close a scope to everyone; a public/allowed group (or global scope) also lets non-admins run /new in an already-linked group, not just comment

Channels

• add [chat_id] — link a channel, discovering its discussion group via Telegram; defaults to the chat you're in, or pass either side's id
• remove [chat_id] — unlink it and drop that group's access rules

A Postak admin can skip add entirely: sending /new in a group Postak doesn't know yet links its channel and starts the conversation in one step.

In a thread

• digest — summarize the conversation
• compress — replace history with a compact summary
• title — regenerate the post title · settitle <text> — set it yourself
• regenerate — redo the last answer
• delete — delete the message you replied to

Model

• model get — show the current model · model set <model> — switch it

System prompt — targets the surrounding thread when run inside one, else the global default

• sysprompt — show it · sysprompt <text> — set it · sysprompt delete — reset it
• The global prompt applies to conversations opened after the change and is admin-only; a thread's prompt takes effect on its next reply and can also be managed by anyone allowed to chat in that thread

Development

uv sync
uv run python -m unittest discover -s tests
uv run ruff check .
uv run mypy postak

License

MIT