#telegram-scam-baiter

Telethon + OpenAI bot that engages unsolicited DMs with safe, time-wasting small talk. It uses a focused system prompt, keeps recent chat history, and replies with human-like delays to keep scammers busy while revealing nothing useful.

## What it does
- Listens for messages from a single target (by username or numeric user ID), or auto-targets the first inbound DM.
- Maintains a rolling history and crafts short, question-ending replies to keep the other person typing.

## Environment variables

| Variable              | Required | Default               | Description                                                                 |
|-----------------------|----------|-----------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| TG_API_ID             | yes      | —                     | Telegram API ID from https://my.telegram.org                                |
| TG_API_HASH           | yes      | —                     | Telegram API hash from https://my.telegram.org                              |
| TG_SESSION            | no       | telethon_session      | Session file prefix used by Telethon                                        |
| TARGET_USERNAME       | no       | —                     | Target's public username (without @). Leave empty if using TARGET_USER_ID   |
| TARGET_USER_ID        | no       | 0                     | Target's numeric Telegram user ID (use if no username)                      |
| TARGET_DISPLAY_NAME   | no       | —                     | Person’s display name (case-insensitive; exact or partial match across dialogs) |
| TARGET_CACHE_FILE     | no       | target_id.txt         | Path to store resolved numeric ID for future runs                           |
| OPENAI_API_KEY        | yes      | —                     | OpenAI API key                                                              |
| OPENAI_MODEL          | no       | gpt-4o-mini           | Chat-capable model used for replies                                         |
| MIN_DELAY_SEC         | no       | 25                    | Minimum delay (seconds) before each reply                                   |
| MAX_DELAY_SEC         | no       | 75                    | Maximum delay (seconds) before each reply                                   |
| HISTORY_FILE          | no       | chat_history.jsonl    | Path to local JSONL file for conversation history                           |
| MAX_TOKENS_HISTORY    | no       | 2200                  | Rough token budget for messages passed to the model                         |
| MAX_MESSAGES_HISTORY  | no       | 30                    | Hard cap on number of messages kept in rolling history                      |
| PYTHONUNBUFFERED      | no       | 1                     | If set, forces unbuffered output in some environments                       |

Notes:
- Set one of TARGET_USERNAME, TARGET_USER_ID, or TARGET_DISPLAY_NAME. If none are set, the first inbound DM will become the target automatically.
- Increase delays if you hit Telegram flood limits.

## License

MIT License — see LICENSE file for details.