Is there a way to send input text to python telegram bot running running on Heroku?

Question

I built a Telegram bot with Python and deployed on Heroku.

The app interacts with Telegram via webhook and after that waits for a console input in order to execute additional commands.

The app works properly, but I don't know how to send make the input command receiving text once the application is deployed on Heroku

This is mainly what the script does:

import os

import telegram
from telegram.ext import CallbackContext
from telegram.ext import MessageHandler, Filters
from telegram import InlineKeyboardButton, InlineKeyboardMarkup, Update, KeyboardButton, ReplyKeyboardMarkup
from telegram.ext import Updater, CommandHandler, CallbackQueryHandler

PORT = os.environ.get('PORT', 8443)

token = 'MY-TOKEN'
updater = Updater(token=token, use_context=True)
dispatcher = updater.dispatcher

def start_func(update: Update, context: CallbackContext):
   ...do something when /start is received ...
def message_func(update: Update, context: CallbackContext):
   ...do something when message is received ...
            
dispatcher.add_handler(MessageHandler(Filters.text & (~Filters.command), message_func))
dispatcher.add_handler(CommandHandler('start', start_func))

updater.start_webhook(listen="0.0.0.0",
                              port=int(PORT),
                              url_path=test_token,
                                  webhook_url=f'https://{appname}.herokuapp.com/{test_token}')
while (True):
    print("Enter a command: ")
    command = input()
    if command == "test":
        .... do something ...
 

Answer 1

Sadly, you can't take direct arguments in Heroku.

But, here are some methods / Hacks you can achieve your goal.

• Take arguments from telegram itself -> you can easily take arguments from telegram itself. if you are worried about security why not gives access only to specific user by comparing user ids and make a admin like token system.

• Use web dashboards -> you could easily make a web dashboard to do this. the entity can send requests to the heroku app url and give inputs.

I strongly recommend you to create a web dashboard with token system which seems very efficient and secure!