Fogwatch

Telegram bot that collects Dead by Daylight promo codes via LLM web search (OpenAI or OpenRouter), lets an admin approve them, and sends each approved code once to everyone who pressed /start.

Try it: @fogwatch_bot.

Run

Needs a bot token from @BotFather and an OpenAI or OpenRouter API key. Put the variables from Configuration into .env (template: .env.example) next to compose.yaml:

services:
  fogwatch:
    image: ghcr.io/evlmaistrenko/fogwatch:latest
    env_file: .env
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
    restart: unless-stopped

The container runs as uid 65532 (distroless nonroot), so create data/ with that owner first, or Docker creates it as root and the bot can't write:

mkdir -p data && sudo chown 65532:65532 data
docker compose up -d                            # start
docker compose pull && docker compose up -d     # update

The image is also on Docker Hub as evlmaistrenko/fogwatch (linux/amd64, linux/arm64). latest is the last release; pin X.Y or X.Y.Z to control updates; main follows every push to main. The version is logged at start.

Admins get their extended command menu after pressing /start in the bot; no restart needed.

Configuration

Environment variables (see .env.example):

Variable	Default
TELEGRAM_TOKEN	—	bot token, required
ADMIN_IDS	—	admin Telegram user ids, comma-separated (@userinfobot)
OPENAI_API_KEY	—	required
OPENAI_BASE_URL	https://api.openai.com/v1	any Responses API, e.g. https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
OPENAI_MODEL	gpt-5-mini	openai/gpt-5-mini on OpenRouter
TZ	UTC	"today" for code expiry, search schedule, log timestamps

Commands

/start    help + recent codes, one message each (without an expiry
          date: added within the last 7 days)
/codes    all active codes, one message with pages and copy buttons:
          expiring soonest, then recent, then older without a date;
          admins see the whole database with status filter buttons
          (🎁 active, ⏳ pending, 🚫 rejected, ⌛ expired, 🗑 removed)
/lang     ru / en / same as Telegram (default)

Admin (shown in the admin's menu):

/pending                          resend moderation cards
/add CODE [YYYY-MM-DD] [reward]   publish + broadcast now;
                                  "ru text | en text" sets both languages
/del CODE                         tombstone: search won't re-add it
/fetch                            search now
/stats                            users (new in 7 days, language),
                                  codes by status and source

Behaviour

• Search is checked every 3 hours (00:00, 03:00, … in TZ), never on start. A check is skipped if a search (scheduled or /fetch) succeeded less than 3 hours ago, so normally the bot searches every 6 hours and retries 3 hours after a failure. The time of the last success survives restarts. The prompt lists the 200 most recent known codes (any status) so the model looks for new ones only.
• If 2 scheduled searches in a row fail, admins get one alert (the error itself only goes to the log), and one "works again" message after the next success.
• Moderation: a new code from search is stored as pending and sent only to admins with ✅ Publish / ❌ Reject. Publish broadcasts it; reject keeps a tombstone so search won't bring it back. With several admins the first click wins. Admins must have pressed /start to receive cards.
• A published code is sent once to every user, as its own message with a copy button. No per-user state: users track codes with Telegram itself (delete redeemed ones, react, pin, …). Users who blocked the bot are removed on the next send.
• Flood control (429) is retried with Telegram's retry_after.
• LLM: Responses API at OPENAI_BASE_URL. Web search uses OpenAI's web_search tool, or openrouter:web_search when the URL is OpenRouter (any model; Exa fallback for models without native search, billed extra).
• AI results are filtered: code must match [A-Z0-9-]{4,30}, have a source URL, and not be past its expiry. Codes without a known expiry stay active until an admin removes them, but /start only sends the ones added within the last 7 days; /codes lists them all.

Storage

Users and codes live in SQLite at data/db.sqlite (relative to the working dir; ./data in the Compose example). The schema is created and extended automatically at start. WAL mode: back up all db.sqlite* files with the bot stopped, or use sqlite3 data/db.sqlite ".backup backup.sqlite".

Development

Setup, commands, project rules, CI and releases: CONTRIBUTING.md.