💧 Funky Hydration Bot

A Telegram bot that reminds you to drink water every 2 hours — funky messages, streak tracking, no AI or external APIs beyond Telegram.

Features

• Randomized, personality-packed reminder messages (uses your Telegram first name)
• Time-of-day greetings (Good morning / afternoon / evening) based on Indian Standard Time
• Quiet hours — no reminders fire 11 PM–7 AM IST by default, regardless of where it's hosted
• ✅ inline button to log a drink, with streak + total counters
• /status, /start, /stop commands
• Data stored in a plain local JSON file — no database required

Setup

1. Create a bot with @BotFather on Telegram — send /newbot and follow the prompts. Copy the token it gives you.
2. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Set your bot token as an environment variable:

   export TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN='your-token-here'

4. Run it:

   python hydration_bot.py

5. Message your bot /start on Telegram.

Configuration

Open hydration_bot.py and adjust:

• REMINDER_INTERVAL_SECONDS — how often reminders fire (default: 2 hours)
• QUIET_HOURS_START / QUIET_HOURS_END — the no-reminders window, in 24-hour IST (default: 23 → 7, i.e. 11 PM–7 AM)
• FUNKY_MESSAGES / CHEER_MESSAGES / GREETINGS — add your own lines
• DATA_FILE — defaults to hydration_data.json; can be overridden via the DATA_FILE env var (useful for pointing at a mounted volume on hosts with ephemeral storage)

Deploying

The bot needs to run continuously to fire reminders (it uses polling, not a public webhook). Options:

• Leave it running on your own computer / a Raspberry Pi
• Deploy as a background service on a host like Railway — see deployment notes below
• Run on a permanently-free VM like an Oracle Cloud Always Free instance

Deploying on Railway

1. Push this repo to GitHub, then in Railway: New Project → Deploy from GitHub repo.
2. In the service's Variables tab, add TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN.
3. In Settings → Deploy, set the Custom Start Command to python hydration_bot.py.
4. Check the Logs tab for 💧 Hydration bot is running..., then test /start on Telegram.
5. Optional: add a Railway Volume mounted at /data, and set DATA_FILE=/data/hydration_data.json so your streak survives redeploys.

Note: Railway's free tier includes a 30-day/$5 trial, then drops to $1/month of usage credit — keep an eye on usage in the dashboard.