telegram_e2e

Telegram E2E Testing

End-to-end testing for Telegram publishing functionality using real Telegram channels.

Overview

The tge2e tool manages the test environment for verifying that notes are correctly published to Telegram channels via both Bot API and MTProto Account pipelines.

Prerequisites

  1. Telegram API credentials from https://my.telegram.org:

    export TELEGRAM_API_ID=your_api_id
export TELEGRAM_API_HASH=your_api_hash

  2. Four test channels (create manually in Telegram):

    • Trip2G Test Bot - Bot API scheduled publishing
    • Trip2G Test Bot Instant - Bot API instant publishing
    • Trip2G Test Account - MTProto scheduled publishing
    • Trip2G Test Account Instant - MTProto instant publishing

  3. Test bot created via @BotFather, added as admin to bot channels

  4. E2E seed database with configured account, bot and publish tags (see e2e_seed.md)

Installation

go build ./cmd/tge2e

Commands

extract

Extract credentials from database to .tg_e2e_session.

./tge2e extract <path/to/database.sqlite>

Steps performed:

  1. Extract telegram account session (decrypts with dev key)
  2. Extract bot token
  3. Connect to Telegram and find test channels by title
  4. Save to .tg_e2e_session

patch-db

Update database with credentials from .tg_e2e_session.

./tge2e patch-db <path/to/database.sqlite>

Updates:

  • telegram_accounts (phone, session_data, display_name)
  • tg_bots (token, name)

cleanup

Clear all messages from test channels.

./tge2e cleanup

verify

Check that .tg_e2e_session is valid and test environment is configured.

./tge2e verify

Returns exit code 0 if ready, 1 if issues found.

dump

Save current channel messages to snapshots.

./tge2e dump

Snapshots are saved to testdata/telegram/snapshots/:

  • trip2g_test_bot.json
  • trip2g_test_bot_instant.json
  • trip2g_test_account.json
  • trip2g_test_account_inst.json

check

Compare current channel messages with saved snapshots.

./tge2e check

Returns exit code 0 if all channels match, 1 if different.

Snapshot Format

{
  "channel_name": "trip2g_test_bot",
  "channel_title": "Trip2G Test Bot",
  "messages": [
    {
      "id": 123,
      "text": "Message text",
      "has_media": false
    },
    {
      "id": 124,
      "text": "Caption",
      "has_media": true,
      "media_type": "photo"
    }
  ],
  "captured_at": "2025-01-15T12:00:00Z"
}

Comparison ignores message IDs and timestamps, only comparing:

  • Message text
  • Media presence (has_media)
  • Media type (photo, video, document, etc.)

Test Workflow

Initial setup (one time)

  1. Create 4 test channels in Telegram
  2. Create bot via @BotFather, add as admin to bot channels
  3. Create E2E seed database (see e2e_seed.md)
  4. Extract credentials: 
    ./tge2e extract data.sqlite3

Running E2E tests

# 1. Prepare test database from seed
sqlite3 test.db < testdata/e2e_seed.sql
./tge2e patch-db test.db

# 2. Clean channels
./tge2e cleanup

# 3. Start server with test database
go run ./cmd/server -db-file=test.db -dev

# 4. Run tests that publish to channels
go test ./... -run TestTelegramPublish

# 5. Verify results
./tge2e check

Updating snapshots

After intentional changes to publishing:

./tge2e dump
git add testdata/telegram/snapshots/

Files

Path Description
.tg_e2e_session Telegram session and channel config (gitignored)
testdata/e2e_seed.sql Database seed with placeholders
testdata/telegram/snapshots/*.json Expected channel state
cmd/tge2e/ Tool source code

Troubleshooting

"channel not found"

Ensure channels exist with exact titles:

  • Trip2G Test Bot
  • Trip2G Test Bot Instant
  • Trip2G Test Account
  • Trip2G Test Account Instant

"bot not configured in channel"

Add the bot as admin to Trip2G Test Bot and Trip2G Test Bot Instant channels with posting permissions.

"failed to decrypt session"

Ensure the database was created with dev encryption key (please-change-me-to-32-byte-key!).

Reset sent messages

delete from telegram_publish_sent_messages;
delete from telegram_publish_sent_account_messages;
update telegram_publish_notes set published_at = null, published_version_id = null, error_count = 0, last_error = null;