The main bot answered /start with a single English line ("Tap to open Scrabble.").
Localize it: Russian or English by the sender's reported Telegram language
(Message.from.language_code, which the Bot API carries on the message itself — there is
no separate user-update event — English fallback), with the longer welcome copy and a
localized launch button ("Открыть «Эрудит»" / "Open “Erudite”").
The welcome links the game channel and the discussion chat by their public @username,
resolved once at startup from the configured TELEGRAM_GAME_CHANNEL_ID / TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID
via getChat and cached. A handle that is unset, private, or unreadable degrades to a
generic noun ("the channel" / "our chat") rather than a dangling "@", so the paragraph
always reads cleanly (the bot's info screen still lists the real links). Adds
GameChannelID to bot.Config (wired from the existing config) for the channel handle.
Tests: startText localization + handle embedding + per-slot generic fallback; handleStart
language selection; resolveWelcomeHandles. README updated.
tgbot.New validates the token with getMe, so a bad or unreachable promo token
would otherwise return an error from run() and crash-loop the whole bot process
— taking the main game bot down with it, since they share the container. Log it
and skip the promo bot instead; the main bot and bot-link are unaffected.
Add a second standalone promo bot to the bot container (answers /start with a
localized message + a URL button into the main bot's Mini App) and gate write
access in a channel's linked discussion chat: grant on join when the Telegram
user is registered and neither admin-suspended nor holding a new chat_muted
role, and revoke/grant on the matching moderation change for a member currently
in the chat.
Eligibility (registered AND NOT suspended AND NOT chat_muted; the game
suspension dominates) is resolved once in the backend and reached two ways: the
bot's join-time unary ResolveChatEligibility over the existing mTLS bot-link,
and a backend chat_access_changed event -> gateway -> ChatGate command
(idempotent; a temporary-block-expiry sweeper may over-emit). The bot guards the
block/unblock path with getChatMember, since bots cannot list members.
A web_app button cannot open another bot's Mini App (it signs initData with the
sending bot's token), so the promo button is a t.me ?startapp URL reusing the
UI's VITE_TELEGRAM_LINK. The bot must be a chat admin with the restrict-members
right and chat_member in its allowed updates.
No schema change: chat_muted reuses the data-driven account_roles table.
Move all Telegram egress off the main host. The single connector held the
bot token, long-polled Telegram and answered the gateway/backend over the
trusted internal network, so the whole component (including login validation)
shared fate with its VPN sidecar. Split it into two binaries that share the
token:
- cmd/validator (home, no VPN): Mini App initData + Login Widget HMAC only,
never calls the Bot API. The gateway dials it for Telegram auth, so game
login is now independent of Telegram reachability.
- cmd/bot (remote): Bot API long-poll + sendMessage, the only component
reaching Telegram. It holds no inbound port — it dials the gateway over a
new reverse mTLS bot-link (pkg/proto/botlink/v1) and executes the send
commands the gateway pushes.
The gateway funnels sends to the bot-link: out-of-app push is fire-and-forget
(at-most-once, dropped if no bot is connected); the backend admin broadcasts
reach a gateway-served relay that forwards them and awaits the bot's ack
(SendToUser/SendToGameChannel contract preserved). mTLS (pkg/mtls) is the one
inter-service link that leaves the trusted segment; validator<->gateway and
the relay stay plaintext internal. The bot is Telegram-rate-limited.
One bot now; the gateway bot registry, an owns_updates flag and per-command
ids leave seams for N later. Webhook rejected (one URL per token, adds inbound
+ a static address).
The unified test contour runs the split (the bot keeps its VPN sidecar and
dials the gateway by its internal name; bot-link certs from deploy/gen-certs.sh,
generated in CI). The prod wiring — the bot on a separate host (no VPN), the
gateway bot-link port published, PROD_ certs with scheduled rotation, an SSH
deploy of both hosts together — is the deferred final stage (PRERELEASE.md TX,
Stage 18).
Docs: ARCHITECTURE, PRERELEASE (phase TX), platform/telegram + gateway +
backend + deploy READMEs, FUNCTIONAL(+ru), CLAUDE.md, .env.example.
Ilia Denisov