Docs / Monitor / Setup

Channel Monitor — Setup

Step-by-step guide to activate Channel Monitor on your OmniGest bot.

Step 1 — Prepare a secondary Telegram account

Do not use your personal account. If Telegram flags the scraping behaviour, only the secondary account is affected.

Recommendations: - eSIM or cheap virtual number (~€5/year). - Never log into Telegram groups with this number for personal chat. - Treat it as a service credential.

Step 2 — Get api_id and api_hash

  1. Go to https://my.telegram.org and log in with the secondary number.
  2. Click API development tools.
  3. Create a new application (any name, platform: "Other").
  4. Copy api_id (number) and api_hash (32-character hex string).

Step 3 — Generate the session string

Run the session generator locally on your laptop (never on a server):

pip install telethon
python scripts/generate_monitor_session.py

The wizard asks for: - api_id - api_hash - Phone number of the secondary account - SMS code (arrives to that phone) - 2FA password (if set)

It prints a SESSION_STRING — a long base64 token. Keep it safe; treat it like a password.

Step 4 — Register the session in OmniGest

DM @OmniGest_bot from your main account (not the secondary):

/monitor_setup

Follow the 3-step wizard: 1. Send api_id 2. Send api_hash 3. Send SESSION_STRING

The bot runs a smoke test against Telegram to verify the session works, then stores it encrypted (Fernet) in the database. You will see:

✅ Sesión activa para +** *** ** **XXXX

Step 5 — Add source channels

/monitor_sources add @chollometro

The bot replies with three buttons: 🛒 Only AliExpress / 📦 Only Amazon / 🔀 Both. Pick one:

  • AliExpress only — ignore posts with only Amazon URLs.
  • Amazon only — ignore posts with only AliExpress URLs.
  • Both (default) — publish any convertible URL.

Repeat for each channel you want to watch. The default cap is 10 active sources per owner; the bot owner can change it via the MONITOR_MAX_SOURCES env var without redeploy.

List current sources:

/monitor_sources list

Remove a source:

/monitor_sources del @chollometro

Step 6 — Configure destinations

OmniGest must be a member of every destination chat.

/monitor_dest 1

The bot asks you to forward a message from the channel/group you want to use as Slot 1. Open that chat, pick any message, tap Forward → send to @OmniGest_bot.

Optional: configure Slot 2:

/monitor_dest 2

Check current destinations:

/monitor_dest

Step 7 — Wait for the first scrape

The scraper runs once per hour. Within 60 minutes of Step 6, you will receive the first DM preview for any new deal published in your sources.

Each preview has 4 buttons: [📢 Slot 1] [📢 Slot 2] [✏️ Edit] [🗑 Ignore]. Tap to publish or discard.

What to expect

  • Latency: up to 60 minutes from publication to DM.
  • Volume: depends on source channels (a busy deal channel = 10-20 DMs/day).
  • Publication: only when you tap a button. OmniGest never publishes automatically.