Nadia

Telegram Bot API Wrapper written in Elixir (document)

API Coverage

As of Nadia 1.4.0, the Telegram Bot API wrapper covers all 180 official methods in Telegram Bot API 10.1, published on June 11, 2026. Nadia keeps response parsing strict: modeled response fields are parsed into Nadia structs, while unknown future fields are ignored until the library explicitly models them.

Installation

Nadia requires Elixir 1.20 or later and Erlang/OTP 27 or later.

Add :nadia to your mix.exs dependencies:

def deps do
  [
    {:nadia, "~> 1.4"}
  ]
end

And run $ mix deps.get.

Configuration

In config/config.exs, add your Telegram Bot token like this

config :nadia,
  token: "bot token"

You can also add an optional recv_timeout in seconds (defaults to 5s):

config :nadia,
  recv_timeout: 10

You can also add a proxy support:

config :nadia,
  proxy: "http://proxy_host:proxy_port",
  proxy_auth: {"user", "password"}

Nadia uses Req as its HTTP client. Proxy configuration supports HTTP and HTTPS proxies accepted by Req/Mint; hackney-specific SOCKS options are no longer supported.

You can also configure the the base url for the api if you need to for some reason:

config :nadia,
  # Telegram API. Default: https://api.telegram.org/bot
  base_url: "http://my-own-endpoint.com/whatever/",

  # Telegram Graph API. Default: https://api.telegra.ph
  graph_base_url: "http://my-own-endpoint.com/whatever/"

Environment variables may be used as well:

config :nadia,
  token: {:system, "ENVVAR_WITH_MYAPP_TOKEN", "default_value_if_needed"}

For applications that need more than one bot, configure named bots and build explicit clients from those names:

config :nadia,
  bots: [
    support: [
      token: {:system, "SUPPORT_BOT_TOKEN"},
      recv_timeout: 10
    ],
    alerts: [
      token: {:system, "ALERTS_BOT_TOKEN"},
      proxy: "http://proxy_host:proxy_port"
    ]
  ]

support_bot = Nadia.Client.from_config(:support)
alerts_bot = Nadia.Client.from_config(:alerts)

Nadia.send_message(support_bot, support_chat_id, "How can we help?")
Nadia.send_message(alerts_bot, alerts_chat_id, "Alert triggered")

The top-level :token configuration remains the default client for existing calls such as Nadia.get_me() and Nadia.send_message(chat_id, text).

Usage

get_me

iex> Nadia.get_me
{:ok,
 %Nadia.Model.User{first_name: "Nadia", id: 666, last_name: nil,
  username: "nadia_bot"}}

get_updates

iex> Nadia.get_updates limit: 5
{:ok, []}

iex> {:ok,
 [%Nadia.Model.Update{callback_query: nil, chosen_inline_result: nil,
   edited_message: nil, inline_query: nil,
   message: %Nadia.Model.Message{audio: nil, caption: nil,
    channel_chat_created: nil,
    chat: %Nadia.Model.Chat{first_name: "Nadia", id: 123,
     last_name: "TheBot", title: nil, type: "private", username: "nadia_the_bot"},
    contact: nil, date: 1471208260, delete_chat_photo: nil, document: nil,
    edit_date: nil, entities: nil, forward_date: nil, forward_from: nil,
    forward_from_chat: nil,
    from: %Nadia.Model.User{first_name: "Nadia", id: 123,
     last_name: "TheBot", username: "nadia_the_bot"}, group_chat_created: nil,
    left_chat_member: nil, location: nil, message_id: 543,
    migrate_from_chat_id: nil, migrate_to_chat_id: nil, new_chat_member: nil,
    new_chat_photo: [], new_chat_title: nil, photo: [], pinned_message: nil,
    reply_to_message: nil, sticker: nil, supergroup_chat_created: nil,
    text: "rew", venue: nil, video: nil, voice: nil}, update_id: 98765}]}

Incoming update helpers

Webhook handlers and custom polling loops can parse raw Telegram update payloads without reaching into Nadia internals:

with {:ok, update} <- Nadia.Parser.parse_update(raw_body) do
  context = Nadia.Context.new(update)

  if context.message && context.message.text == "/start" do
    Nadia.Context.reply(context, "Ready")
  end
end

Nadia.Parser.parse_update/1 accepts a decoded update map, an existing %Nadia.Model.Update{}, or a raw JSON object binary. parse_updates/1 accepts a decoded list, a JSON array binary, or a decoded/encoded Bot API response envelope with a "result" update list.

Contexts preserve explicit clients for multi-bot applications:

client = Nadia.Client.from_config(:support)
context = Nadia.Context.new(update, client)

Nadia.Context.reply(context, "Support bot here")

Dispatching updates

For non-polling update intake, define a small handler and dispatch parsed updates to it:

defmodule MyApp.Bot do
  @behaviour Nadia.Handler

  @impl true
  def handle_update(_update, context) do
    case Nadia.Dispatcher.match_command(context, "start") do
      {:ok, _match} ->
        Nadia.Context.reply(context, "Ready")

      :nomatch ->
        :ignore
    end
  end
end

with {:ok, update} <- Nadia.Parser.parse_update(raw_body) do
  Nadia.Dispatcher.dispatch(update, MyApp.Bot, client: Nadia.Client.from_config(:support))
end

Nadia.Dispatcher.dispatch/3 returns the handler result unchanged. Handler exceptions are not swallowed, so callers and future supervisors can decide how to handle failed updates.

Supervised polling

To run a bot under OTP, add Nadia.Polling to your supervision tree:

children = [
  {Nadia.Polling,
   client: Nadia.Client.from_config(:support),
   handler: MyApp.Bot,
   allowed_updates: ["message", "callback_query"],
   timeout: 30}
]

Nadia.Polling calls getUpdates with long polling, dispatches updates sequentially through Nadia.Dispatcher, and tracks the next offset in memory. It advances the offset after :ok, :ignore, or {:ok, value} handler results. Handler {:error, reason} results, handler exceptions, and getUpdates errors are retried with bounded backoff without acknowledging the failed update.

To generate a starter handler and offline test, run:

mix nadia.gen.bot MyApp.Bot --polling

See Build Your First Bot for the full walkthrough.

Webhook helpers

Nadia includes framework-neutral webhook helpers without adding a Plug or Phoenix dependency:

Nadia.Webhook.dispatch_body(
  raw_body,
  MyApp.Bot,
  headers: request_headers,
  secret_token: System.fetch_env!("TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_SECRET"),
  client: Nadia.Client.from_config(:support)
)

Nadia.Webhook verifies Telegram's optional x-telegram-bot-api-secret-token header, parses the raw update body, builds a Nadia.Context, and dispatches through Nadia.Dispatcher. See Receive Webhook Updates for a framework-neutral endpoint outline.

send_message

iex> case Nadia.send_message(tlg_id, "The message text goes here") do
  {:ok, _result} ->
    :ok
  {:error, %Nadia.Model.Error{reason: "Please wait a little"}} ->
    :wait
  end

:ok

Refer to Nadia document and Telegram Bot API document for more details.

Testing

The default test suite is offline and credential-free:

mix test

Optional live Telegram smoke tests are tagged with :telegram_live and are not run by default:

mix test --only telegram_live

Live tests require two bots with Bot-to-Bot Communication Mode enabled in BotFather. Configure credentials by copying the committed seed file to the ignored local env file, then edit the local file:

cp .env.live.local.example .env.live.local
chmod 600 .env.live.local
${EDITOR:-vi} .env.live.local

The local .env.live.local file should define:

export NADIA_LIVE_BOT_A_TOKEN="123:bot-a-token"
export NADIA_LIVE_BOT_A_USERNAME="bot_a_username"
export NADIA_LIVE_BOT_B_TOKEN="456:bot-b-token"
export NADIA_LIVE_BOT_B_USERNAME="bot_b_username"

Then source the local file and run the live suite from the same shell:

source .env.live.local
mix test --only telegram_live

Set NADIA_LIVE_API_ENV=test in .env.live.local to route live smoke tests through Telegram's Bot API test environment.

Copyright and License

Copyright (c) 2015 Yu Zhang

This library licensed under the MIT license.