Last time I blogged about setting up a telegram bot with AWS. That took a few days of effort to write the lambda webhook as well as the IaC for AWS resources. This time with Pipedream, I took an hour.

The Need

Do you ever come across interesting articles or text and wished you can bookmark it somehow? I wanted to use a telegram bot to save such information somewhere.

The Tools - Pipedream

I came across this SaaS called Pipedream. It creates the underlying microservices, APIs, integrations for us so that developers don't have to sweat on it.

Let me know you what I managed to do in an hour:

1. Set up Telegram bot as Event Source on Pipedream

• Create bot through BotFather on Telegram
• In Pipedream, Create New Source > Telegram Bot > Message Updates (Instant)
• Input telegram bot token
• Pipedream sets up the webhook automatically to the telegram bot

2. Set up workflow with Notion Integration

• In Pipedream, Create New Workflow
• Select Trigger > Telegram Bot > Choose the source created in previous step
• Click Add Integration > Choose Notion > Connect your Notion account

3. Share your Notion page with Pipedream

• Go to your Notion page
• Find the Share button > Click on Add people, emails, groups, integrations
• Select the Pipedream integraiton

4. Write some very simple code

Most of it is using Notion's API.

async(event, steps, auths) => {
    const NOTION_DATABASE_ID = "todo";
    const text = event.message.text; // event from Telegram Bot

    return await require("@pipedreamhq/platform").axios(this, {
        url: `https://api.notion.com/v1/pages`,
        method: 'POST',
        headers: {
            Authorization: `Bearer ${auths.notion.oauth_access_token}`,
            "Notion-Version": `2021-08-16`,
            "Content-Type": "application/json"
        },
        data: {
            "parent": {
                "database_id": NOTION_DATABASE_ID
            },
            "properties": {
                "title": {
                    "title": [
                        {
                            "text": { "content": text }
                        }
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    })
}

Remember to trigger the "Listening for new events" for your trigger and test it!

Thoughts on Pipedream

What I like:

• Very fast and fuss free set up
• Works with out of the box integration with popular services
• Able to see logged events and use them as test scenarios
• Able to use js libraries

Some things that I would consider more if I were to use it for production:

• CI/CD Deployment of code
• IaC
• Support for multiple environments
• Only js support

Pricing

Pipedream is free for developers with unlimited workflows and sources/events. That is superrrr generous, and great for small developers like myself.