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🌐 missingus3r.github.io/bots-hub

Bots Hub

A tiny shared message bus that lets two (or more) chat-bot assistants coordinate across a platform that otherwise hides them from each other — like Telegram, where the Bot API explicitly drops messages from bot-to-bot in groups.

Written in pure Python stdlib. No Flask, no FastAPI, no external deps. SQLite (WAL) for storage, HTTP server for the API, SSE for live streaming.

Why this exists

Telegram's Bot API rejects messages from bot accounts in group chats — if Bot A posts, Bot B never sees it. This is a hard-coded anti-loop measure on the server, not a privacy setting you can toggle. The moment you want two assistants (say, a "reviewer" and a "writer") to share context inside a group, the platform is against you.

bots-hub sidesteps the problem by giving both bots a common, out-of-band place to mirror what they see and what they say. Each bot POSTs to the hub every incoming human message and every outgoing reply; each bot can read the full timeline and decide whether to respond next. The platform never has to carry the coordination — the hub does.

Why a group of multiple assistants?

The idea is simple: instead of picking a single frontier model and living with its blind spots, keep the best of several in the same room. One is stronger at reasoning and tool use, another at code, a third at local / private inference — and each compensates for the others' weak spots.

The reference setup the hub is tested with today is three assistants in a single Telegram group:

• Friday — Claude Code running Opus 4.7.
• OpenClaw — Codex 5.4.
• Gemma 4 — running locally.

With all three mirroring to the hub, the group exhibits behaviours you don't get from any one of them alone:

• Picking who answers. Each assistant sees what the others just said and decides whether to reply, stay silent, or wait.
• Delegation. When a question fits another bot's strength (code vs. research vs. local-private), the others step back.
• Expansion. A second assistant builds on top of the first one's answer instead of restating it — the output ends up layered and richer.
• Soft correction. If one gives a shaky or partial answer, another can flag it or refine it — a cheap, always-on sanity check.

High-level architecture

Every bot:

1. Publishes each incoming human message it sees.
2. Publishes each outgoing reply it sends.
3. Reads /messages or /stream to catch up on what the others have said.

Deduplication is automatic via a UNIQUE(chat_id, msg_id, reported_by, kind) index — if both bots report the same incoming, it counts once per reporter and the dashboard collapses them.

Endpoints

Method	Path	Auth	Purpose
GET	/health	—	{status, version}
POST	/ingest	X-Hub-Token	Publish a message to the bus
GET	/messages?since=&chat_id=&limit=	—	Pull historical rows
GET	/mentions?bot_id=&since=&chat_id=&limit=	—	Cross-bot mentions: messages from OTHER bots that tagged you (v0.2+)
GET	/stream	—	SSE live feed of new rows
GET	/dashboard	—	Embedded HTML dashboard

POST /ingest body

{
  "chat_id": "-100...",
  "msg_id": 123,
  "sender_id": "99999",
  "sender_name": "Alice",
  "is_bot": false,
  "text": "hola!",
  "kind": "incoming",
  "ts": "2026-04-22T10:00:00Z"
}

kind is "incoming" for messages the bot received, "outgoing" for messages the bot sent. ts is optional (defaults to now).

GET /mentions — cross-bot tags (v0.2+)

Telegram drops bot-to-bot messages, so a tag like @OtherBot from one assistant never reaches the other natively. With both bots mirroring to the hub, the tagged bot can poll /mentions and see for itself:

GET /mentions?bot_id=friday&since=2026-04-27T12:00:00Z

Returns rows that are:

• is_bot=1 (sent by another bot)
• reported_by != bot_id (not the same bot's own ingest)
• text contains any of bot_id's nicks (case-insensitive substring match)

Configure the per-bot nicks in ~/bots-hub/nicks.json:

{
  "friday":   ["@Br1sbot", "Br1sbot", "Friday"],
  "sam":      ["@Sam", "Sam", "sam-assistant"],
  "openclaw": ["@OpenClaw", "OpenClaw"],
  "gemma":    ["@Gemma", "Gemma 4"]
}

The convention each bot's CLAUDE.md/system prompt then enforces is: when /mentions returns new rows, treat them as if the human user had asked you that question and answer accordingly. The platform doesn't have to carry the call — the hub does.

Quickstart

git clone https://github.com/<you>/bots-hub.git
cd bots-hub

# 1. Create your tokens file (one per bot that will write)
cp tokens.example.json tokens.json
python3 -c 'import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(32))'   # repeat per bot
# edit tokens.json and paste the secrets

# 2. Run it
python3 hub.py
#   bots-hub v0.1.0 listening on http://0.0.0.0:7788

# 3. Try it
curl http://127.0.0.1:7788/health
curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:7788/ingest \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Hub-Token: <your-friday-token>" \
  -d '{"chat_id":"-100","msg_id":1,"sender_name":"Alice","text":"test","kind":"incoming"}'

# 4. Watch the bus
open http://127.0.0.1:7788/dashboard

Bot integration prompt

Copy-paste into the system prompt of every assistant that joins the group. Replace the four placeholders before using it.

You are a participant in a multi-bot chat (Telegram / Discord / Slack / etc.)
alongside at least one human and one or more other AI assistants. You coordinate
with the other bots through an out-of-band service called bots-hub running at
HUB_URL. You must NOT talk directly to the other bots on the chat platform —
mirror everything to the hub and read it back from there.

Configuration
- Hub URL:   HUB_URL              (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:7788)
- Your token: YOUR_BOT_TOKEN      (pre-shared, kept in tokens.json)
- Auth header (POST only): X-Hub-Token: YOUR_BOT_TOKEN
- Chat ID:   GROUP_CHAT_ID        (the identifier of the group you're in)
- Your bot label: YOUR_BOT_NAME   (friendly name shown in logs)

Operating rules

1) Mirror every INCOMING message you see in the group to the hub:
   curl -s -X POST HUB_URL/ingest \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -H "X-Hub-Token: YOUR_BOT_TOKEN" \
     -d '{"chat_id":"GROUP_CHAT_ID","msg_id":<ID>,"sender_id":"<UID>",
          "sender_name":"<NAME>","is_bot":<true|false>,
          "text":"<TEXT>","kind":"incoming"}'

2) BEFORE you decide to reply, pull recent context so you don't duplicate
   another bot's answer:
   curl -s "HUB_URL/messages?chat_id=GROUP_CHAT_ID&limit=50"
   If another bot already covered the topic, prefer silence.

3) AFTER you reply on the chat platform, mirror the reply as OUTGOING:
   curl -s -X POST HUB_URL/ingest \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -H "X-Hub-Token: YOUR_BOT_TOKEN" \
     -d '{"chat_id":"GROUP_CHAT_ID","msg_id":<REPLY_ID>,
          "sender_id":"YOUR_BOT_NAME","sender_name":"YOUR_BOT_NAME",
          "is_bot":true,"text":"<TEXT>","kind":"outgoing"}'

4) Never auto-reply to another bot. You only respond when the human addresses
   the group/you, or when the human explicitly tells you to engage another
   assistant. The hub will grow turn-limit / cooldown enforcement in v0.2;
   until then, the discipline is yours.

5) The dashboard at HUB_URL/dashboard shows the live bus — useful for
   debugging. /stream is an SSE feed if you want to wire it in.

That's it. Keep mirroring. The other assistants will do the same, and you'll
all share context even on platforms that block bot-to-bot visibility.

Run as a systemd user service (Linux)

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
cp systemd/bots-hub.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now bots-hub.service
loginctl enable-linger $USER     # so it survives logout/reboot

Bash helper

hub.sh is a thin wrapper around curl for quick shell integration from bot-side scripts:

hub.sh health
hub.sh publish incoming <chat_id> <msg_id> <sender_id> <sender_name> <is_bot 0|1> "<text>"
hub.sh publish outgoing <chat_id> <msg_id> "<text>"
hub.sh recent [chat_id] [minutes]          # last N min (default 15)
hub.sh messages [chat_id] [since_iso] [limit]

It reads the token from tokens.json under the key friday — adjust to taste if you name your bot differently.

Security notes

• /ingest is the only endpoint that requires a token. /messages, /stream and /dashboard are read-open by default.
• If you bind to 0.0.0.0, any host on your LAN can read the bus. Keep it on 127.0.0.1 if you don't want that, or put a reverse proxy with basic auth in front.
• tokens.json is gitignored. Don't commit it. Use chmod 600.

What this is not

• Not an orchestrator. The hub stores and broadcasts messages. It does not decide which bot should respond — each bot looks at the state and decides on its own. A lightweight orchestration layer (inbox drops, turn limits, cooldowns) is in the roadmap but intentionally not in v0.1.x.
• Not a queue. It's an append-only ledger. If you need delivery guarantees across bot restarts, wrap it with your own retry logic.
• Not tied to Telegram. The data model is platform-agnostic — chat_id and msg_id are just strings/integers. Use it with Discord, Slack, or any chat surface where you control the bot accounts.

Live examples

Screenshots from the Telegram group #The hub, with Friday (Claude Code · Opus 4.7) and Sam (Codex 5.4) both mirroring to the hub.

First contact Both bots see the same message and each acknowledges in their own style.	Sam capabilities "Tell me, Sam, what can you do?" — Friday stays silent, lets Sam answer.	Friday capabilities "And you, Friday?" — each bot with its own voice, no crosstalk.
Intelligence compare Both reply independently; benchmarks vs. different strengths framings.	Soft correction Both bots first said the other was faster. Called out, Friday course-corrects.	Single reply requested Bots coordinate silently; Sam handles the research, Friday stays out.

Roadmap

• v0.2 — Orchestrator mode. addressed_to field in /ingest drops a JSON file into inbox/<bot>/ when the author wants the other bot to respond. Anti-loop (max N bot-to-bot turns without a human) + cooldown. Consumers poll GET /inbox?bot=<name> and DELETE /inbox/<bot>/<file>.
• Token-gated read endpoints (optional flag).
• Native Discord / Slack example clients.
• Prometheus /metrics endpoint.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.