Reminders and automations
An automation is a “bot” that listens to nothing. It simply writes to you in Telegram when something happens: an event in your calendar is near, an important email arrived, the morning came.
Bot or automation
| Bot | Automation | |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes first | A person presses a button, the bot answers. | A script writes to you on its own, on an event or a schedule. |
| Who it is for | For customers and for you. | Mostly for you. |
| What it needs | A token and code that runs continuously. | A token and a chat id. The script can run on a schedule. |
Ready-made scenarios
| Scenario | What happens |
|---|---|
| Calendar reminders | Before each Google Calendar event, a reminder arrives in Telegram. You choose how early: 15 minutes, an hour or a day. |
| Morning summary | Every morning a short list: today’s events and tasks from a sheet. |
| Important emails | When Gmail receives a message from certain people or with a certain word in the subject, you get a short message. |
| Birthday greetings | On the birthday of a person in a sheet, a greeting goes to them by email and a reminder comes to you in Telegram. |
| Sheet row → calendar event | A new row with a date, time and name becomes an event in Google Calendar. Telegram is not needed here. |
How it works without a server
The builder asks the agent to choose the simplest option without your own server:
- Google Apps Script, if the data is in Google Calendar, Sheets or Gmail. The script lives at Google and runs on a schedule, so your Mac can be off.
- A small Python script on your computer, if Google is not involved. Then it works while the computer is on.
The agent explains in one sentence why it chose that.
What you need to provide
The bot and the chat id
An automation writes through your bot, so you need the token from @BotFather (see the first bot) and your chat id: the number of the chat to send to. The agent shows how to find it. The easiest way is to ask it to add a command to the bot that replies with your chat number.
So the bot can write to you in private, first open it and press Start.
Three steps the agent finishes with
The agent ends its answer with exactly three setup steps that you do yourself. For Apps Script they look roughly like this:
- Open
script.google.comand paste the code. - Fill in the token and the chat id.
- Turn on the trigger and run a test.
For each step the agent says what to press and what should appear on the screen.
What is built into the task
- Secrets are not in the code. The token and chat id sit in Script Properties or in
.env. - No duplicates. The script remembers what it has already handled and does not send the same thing twice.
- A test run. There is a function that shows the result at once, and clear error messages.
Try it
Open the builder, choose Automation and the first scenario. It is the easiest path to your first Telegram notification.