blazegram

Declarative Telegram bot framework for Rust.
One screen at a time. Zero garbage in chat. Direct MTProto over persistent TCP.

Blazes skips the HTTP Bot API entirely. Instead of polling an HTTP server that polls Telegram, it holds a single persistent TCP socket to Telegram's datacenter via grammers MTProto. The result: lower latency, 2 GB file uploads, no middleman.

On top of that, blazegram introduces the Screen — a declarative description of what the user should see right now. When you call navigate(), a Virtual Chat Differ computes the minimal set of Telegram API calls (edit, delete, send) to get from the current state to the new one. You never manage message IDs.

30-second example

use blazegram::prelude::*;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    App::builder("BOT_TOKEN")
        .command("start", |ctx| Box::pin(async move {
            ctx.navigate(
                Screen::text("home", "<b>Pick a side.</b>")
                    .keyboard(|kb| kb
                        .button("Light", "pick:light")
                        .button("Dark", "pick:dark"))
                    .build()
            ).await
        }))
        .callback("pick", |ctx| Box::pin(async move {
            let side = ctx.callback_param().unwrap_or_default();
            ctx.navigate(
                Screen::text("chosen", format!("You chose <b>{side}</b>."))
                    .keyboard(|kb| kb.button_row("Back", "menu"))
                    .build()
            ).await
        }))
        .run().await;
}

cargo add blazegram tokio --features tokio/full
BOT_TOKEN=123:ABC cargo run

First launch authenticates via MTProto and creates a .session file. Subsequent starts reconnect in under 100 ms.

The differ

Every navigate() call runs through the differ before touching the network:

  callback (button press)     → edit messages in place      (1 API call)
  user sent text / command    → delete old, send new at end (2–3 calls)
  content identical           → nothing                     (0 calls)

  [Settings] pressed:

   Before                      After
   ┌──────────────────┐       ┌──────────────────┐
   │ Main Menu        │  ─→  │ Settings         │
   │ [Settings] [Help]│       │ [Lang] [Back]    │
   └──────────────────┘       └──────────────────┘
   differ: EditText(msg_id=42)   ← one API call, not two

If the user typed something between screens, the old message is scrolled out of view — editing it would be invisible. The differ detects this and switches to delete + send instead. Active progressive streams are auto-cancelled before diffing, so no concurrent edits can race.

Screens

# use blazegram::prelude::*;
Screen::text("id", "<b>Hello</b>").build();

Screen::text("menu", "Pick one:")
    .keyboard(|kb| kb
        .button_row("A", "pick:a")
        .button_row("B", "pick:b"))
    .build();

Screen::builder("gallery")
    .photo("https://example.com/pic.jpg")
        .caption("Nice shot")
        .keyboard(|kb| kb.button_row("Next", "next"))
        .done()
    .build();

// multi-message
Screen::builder("receipt")
    .text("Order confirmed.").done()
    .photo("https://example.com/qr.png").caption("QR code").done()
    .build();

Navigation stack

ctx.push(Screen::text("detail", "Deep view").build()).await?;
// ... user clicks [Back]
ctx.pop(|prev_id| make_screen(prev_id)).await?;

Stack depth capped at 20. Oldest entry dropped silently.

Forms

Form::builder("signup")
    .text_step("name", "name", "Your name?")
        .validator(|s| if s.len() < 2 { Err("Too short".into()) } else { Ok(()) })
        .done()
    .integer_step("age", "age", "Age?")
        .min(13).max(120).done()
    .choice_step("plan", "plan", "Pick a plan:", &["Free", "Pro"])
        .done()
    .confirm_step(|d| format!("Name: {}\nAge: {}\nPlan: {}", d["name"], d["age"], d["plan"]))
    .on_complete(|ctx, data| Box::pin(async move {
        ctx.navigate(Screen::text("done", "Welcome aboard.").build()).await
    }))
    .build()

Validation errors auto-delete and show a 3 s toast. Cancel/back buttons built-in.

Progressive updates

Stream edits to one message. Auto-throttled to stay under Telegram rate limits. If navigate() is called before finalize(), the stream is cancelled automatically.

let h = ctx.progressive(Screen::text("t", "Loading...").build()).await?;
h.update(Screen::text("t", "Loading... 40%").build()).await;
h.update(Screen::text("t", "Loading... 90%").build()).await;
h.finalize(Screen::text("t", "Done.").build()).await?;

State

ctx.set("counter", &42);
let n: i32 = ctx.get("counter").unwrap_or(0);

#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize, Default)]
struct Profile { xp: u64 }
let p: Profile = ctx.state();
ctx.set_state(&Profile { xp: 100 });

Reply mode

For conversational bots that don't need chat cleanup:

ctx.reply(Screen::text("r", "thinking...").build()).await?;   // sends
ctx.reply(Screen::text("r", "thinking... ok").build()).await?; // edits
ctx.reply(Screen::text("r", "Here you go.").build()).await?;   // edits

User messages are not deleted. Previous replies are not deleted. Next handler call starts a fresh message.

Frozen / permanent messages

// frozen: survives navigate(), differ won't touch it
let sent = ctx.send_text("Pinned info").await?;
ctx.freeze_message(sent.message_id);

// permanent: never tracked, never deleted
ctx.send_permanent(Screen::text("p", "Receipt #123").build()).await?;

Inline mode

.inline(|ctx| Box::pin(async move {
    ctx.answer_inline(vec![
        InlineResult::article("1", "Result")
            .description("Description")
            .text("Selected."),
    ], None, None, false).await
}))

i18n

locales/en.json  { "hi": "Hello, { $name }!" }
locales/de.json  { "hi": "Hallo, { $name }!" }

let text = ctx.t_with("hi", &[("name", "World")]);

Language auto-detected from user.language_code. Falls back to default.

Template engine

let html = blazegram::template::render(
    "<b>{{ title }}</b>\n{% for x in items %}- {{ x }}\n{% endfor %}",
    &vars,
);

Supports {{ var }}, {% if cond %}, {% for x in list %}, {% else %}.

Middleware

App::builder("TOKEN")
    .middleware(LoggingMiddleware)
    .middleware(AnalyticsMiddleware::new())
    .middleware(ThrottleMiddleware::new(5, Duration::from_secs(1)))
    // custom:
    .middleware(MyAuthMiddleware { admin_ids: vec![123] })

Testing

use blazegram::mock::MockBotApi;
use blazegram::testing::TestApp;

#[tokio::test]
async fn test_start() {
    let app = TestApp::new();
    let reply = app.send_command("/start").await;
    assert!(reply.text.contains("Pick a side"));
}

No network. MockBotApi records every API call for assertions.

All features

Architecture

   Your handlers        .command() / .callback() / .on_input()
        │
        ▼
      Ctx              navigate() / push() / pop() / reply()
        │
        ▼
     Differ            old tracked msgs + new Screen → minimal ops
        │
        ▼
    Executor           retry on FLOOD_WAIT, fallback on entity errors
        │
        ▼
     BotApi            73 async methods (trait, mockable)
        │
        ▼
    grammers           MTProto → Telegram DC (persistent TCP)

Per-chat mutex serializer guarantees sequential update processing. No race conditions across concurrent users.

Install

[dependencies]
blazegram = "0.3"
tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] }

Optional:

blazegram = { version = "0.3", features = ["redis"] }  # Redis state backend
tracing-subscriber = "0.3"                              # structured logging

MSRV

1.75

License

MIT