How to Host a Telegram Bot on Replit

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This tutorial shows how to keep your Telegram bot running in Replit using the Shell, so it stays active without needing the official Deployments feature.

Note:

• You need a Replit account and a working Telegram bot project. If you haven't built one yet, see How to Create a Telegram Bot on Replit first.
• Your bot token should be saved as a Secret with the key TOKEN. Add it under the Secrets tab if you haven't already.
• This method keeps your bot alive within an active Replit session. For permanent 24/7 uptime, see How to Deploy a Telegram Bot on Replit instead.
  

1. Sign in at replit.com and open your Telegram bot project from the dashboard.
2. In your workspace, click New Tab and select Shell tab to open a terminal session.
3. In the Shell, run your bot using the command python bot/main.py. Your bot starts and begins polling for messages.
4. To keep the bot running after detaching from the session, start a new screen by typing screen -S [botname] and pressing Enter, then run python bot/main.py inside it.
5. Detach from the screen session by pressing Ctrl+A, then D. Your bot continues running in the background.
6. Open Telegram and send your bot a test message - for example, /start or /help - to confirm it's active and responding.