Telegram Alert Shell Script Linux

Telegram bot alerts are a popular Slack alternative for small teams — one Bash script with curl and the Bot API covers deploy notices, cron failures, and backup summaries.

What this script does

Uses https://api.telegram.org/bot$TOKEN/sendMessage
Reads TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN and TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID
Accepts message from args or stdin
JSON payload built with Python one-liner (safe escaping)
Fails fast on missing token

Prerequisites

curl
Telegram bot token from @BotFather
Chat ID from getUpdates or channel

Step 1: Save the script

sudo nano /usr/local/bin/telegram-notify.sh
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/telegram-notify.sh

Step 2: Full script (scroll to read)

telegram-notify.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

TOKEN="${TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN:?set TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN}"
CHAT_ID="${TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID:?set TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID}"

if [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; then
  text="$*"
else
  text="$(cat)"
fi

payload=$(TEXT="$text" CHAT_ID="$CHAT_ID" python3 -c 'import json,os; print(json.dumps({"chat_id":os.environ["CHAT_ID"],"text":os.environ["TEXT"]}))')

curl -fsS -X POST "https://api.telegram.org/bot${TOKEN}/sendMessage" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d "$payload"
echo

Scroll inside the box to read the full script.

Step 3: Configure settings

Slack variant: Slack webhook script
Email: email alert
Never commit tokens — use /etc/default/telegram-alert mode 600

Step 4: Test manually

TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN='xxx' TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID='123' ./telegram-notify.sh 'test from server'

Schedule with cron

sudo crontab -e

Add:

*/5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/telegram-notify.sh "Cron heartbeat $(hostname)"

Telegram Bot Alert Shell Script Linux (curl JSON Message)