Telegram Serverless

(core.telegram.org)

48 points | by soheilpro 3 hours ago

12 comments

  • nunobrito 2 minutes ago
    A few questions and if someone knows please help:

    1) storage limits? 2) can access the internet? If so: bandwidth limits?

    Thanks!

  • honeycrispy 0 minutes ago
    We're never getting away from Javascript, are we
  • domh 49 minutes ago
    This is cool. I wish Signal had a bot API like telegram's.
    • AgharaShyam 1 minute ago
      I wish WhatsApp did... hopefully it goes the way of BBM and a more developer friendly platform becomes the norm among normies.
  • bdcravens 17 minutes ago
    With the popularity of Hermes, OpenClaw, etc, BotFather is quite a linchpin in the AI ecosystem.
  • AnonC 31 minutes ago
    Emphasis mine:

    > Each invocation runs in a lightweight V8 isolate, close to Telegram's own systems, so calls to the Bot API and your database are quick and reliable.

    Telegram’s servers are distributed worldwide. I understand that the calls to the Bot API may be quick because the serverless code would be propagated to the edge, but how does it handle an SQLite DB? Is that also replicated to guarantee quick access from anywhere?

    • laosb 6 minutes ago
      Telegram's servers are far from "distributed worldwide": In fact, it currently has only 5 logical "data center"s, and while DC3 is still on, clues [0] seem to suggest DC3 doesn't actually carry user data at all now, and both DC2 and 4 are in Amsterdam, so essentially they just need to serve 3 locations.

      Also, Telegram's protocol design only allows for connecting to user's home DC for any write interactions (except media, which in most cases still is home DC, or a "media DC" alongside the home DC). Bots are based on the same DC of the user, so almost all meaningful interactions will happen only on one DC for any specific bot.

      [0]: https://dev.moe/en/3025

    • netsharc 16 minutes ago
      My first guess would be replicaton isn't that critical, because a user would mostly interact with an instance that's nearby, and this instance has their data. But the page mentions:

      > Games and Tools — including leaderboards, quizzes and more.

      A leaderboard that's globally consistent, huh, that's not trivial.

      Maybe they just propagate the SQL commands to all their servers...

    • weli 15 minutes ago
      I guess the v8 isolate is heavily restricted and sandboxed and can't be used to access the local filesystem
  • eamag 1 hour ago
    What are the quotas like execution time, storage etc?
    • xd1936 24 minutes ago
      Thinking about using this to run my Plex server
  • victorbjorklund 44 minutes ago
    I don't see anything about pricing.
    • catapart 34 minutes ago
      I'm also curious about this.
    • dist-epoch 21 minutes ago
      sounds free to me
  • raybb 1 hour ago
    Providing a SQLite db out of the box is a nice touch. I wonder if they're capping it's size in any way.
  • mschuster91 11 minutes ago
    Good lord. This reeks of LLM... why should I use your product when you can't be bothered to have a human write it? Why should I trust it to work correctly or have been decently tested, neither of which is a given when having an AI vibe-code it?

    And why is it one huge single page of word salad instead of self-contained units?

    Anyway, good to see someone post a fully self contained example demonstrating core concepts. At least one thing done right.

    • adlpz 5 minutes ago
      Sounds like it's free, so, why the hate? May as well have zero docs. I don't think they're trying to convince you of anything.
  • stavros 1 hour ago
    This is off-topic, but I was kind of surprised to see this page written by Claude. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised, but I somehow didn't expect it.
    • jore 1 hour ago
      Out of curiosity - how did you figure this out? I cannot find any hints about that. Was it the language used?
      • petercooper 34 minutes ago
        "it doesn't silently go unnoticed", "would be silently inert", "instead of silently overwriting", "you can never silently overwrite"

        The biggest tell for me is overuse of the term "silently". "quietly" is another one you often see from Claude in particular. Models love adverbs for whatever reason, whereas a human writer would use them in moderation for emphasis or prefer terms like "by accident".

      • zackkrida 46 minutes ago
        language, structure. look how much negation there is. the construction "no A, no B, no, C" is used several times.

        or another example, the following sentence:

        "handlers/ is flat — no subdirectories"

        who writes like this? you'd just write "handlers/ is a flat folder" or similar.

      • usui 46 minutes ago
        I often see replies to AI-generated posts being pointed out here asking what makes it obvious. Is it that difficult to notice the indicators? Is it mostly undetected by English-as-a-second-language speakers, people inexperienced with generative AI, or is it something else?
        • vidarh 14 minutes ago
          I rather think the surprise is a result of technical users wildly overestimating how obvious these markers are to people.
      • haunter 23 minutes ago
      • stavros 5 minutes ago
        I can't quite tell you, it wasn't something specific, Claude's writing is just a specific sort of punchy. The "directly on X - no Y, no Z, no A" and the "this is the part you no longer have to do" just smell a lot like Claude. Also "removes that layer entirely", "they map cleanly onto each other", it's all just Claude.

        It's how you see a painting and you know it's by Picasso, let's say, or you read an author and you know it's Hemingway. Everyone has their own unique style, and so does Claude. It's just that Claude is the most prolific writer in human history now.

      • fakeBeerDrinker 58 minutes ago
        Possibly the excessive use of em dashes. Just a guess.
        • mohammedmsgm 55 minutes ago
          This is so obvious

          The most AI generated MD in existence. It's also th excessive use of bold, only AI can make bold hard to read.

          • fakeBeerDrinker 52 minutes ago
            Reply to the parent, not me. I understand this.
    • dist-epoch 22 minutes ago
      I finds it surprising you find it surprising.

      Is this the best use of a human, to write a long, detailed manual for a feature? Which most likely will be read by another LLM?

  • mcraiha 1 hour ago
    [flagged]
  • dzonga 39 minutes ago
    telegram is full of bots and spam.

    before it was a better WhatsApp alternative. now either WhatsApp or Signal.

    • embedding-shape 13 minutes ago
      > telegram is full of bots

      It's been a core feature of Telegram since almost the beginning, and one of the main reasons I end up using Telegram, not sure why you'd think this is a drawback. The spam sucks though, not sure how they haven't got a handle on it yet.

      • vachina 0 minutes ago
        If you don’t join spammy groups you won’t get spam
    • kelvinjps10 36 minutes ago
      those bots are different to these ones, for these you have to start the interaction. bots is the most useful feature of telegram
    • sgt 37 minutes ago
      They should start charging for it. Like not a lot, maybe just a coffee a month. That should keep the bots away.
    • TacticalCoder 33 minutes ago
      I use Telegram only for groups with people I know. I've got zero issues with boths.

      Are you using public channels? (are those even a thing with Telegram?)

      • flexagoon 17 minutes ago
        > are those even a thing with Telegram?

        It is the thing with Telegram