RightsChangerBot

A long-polling/FSM example for changing a member's chat permissions and a channel administrator's rights with inline keyboards. The bot registers its commands in the all-group-chats scope and prints every received update to standard output.

Commands and callbacks

Member permissions

Run these commands in a group or supergroup as a reply to a non-administrator's message:

/simple shows toggles for polls, other messages, and web-page previews. Changes use Telegram's dependent/common permission model (useIndependentChatPermissions = false), so related permissions may change together.
/granular shows independent toggles for text messages, other messages, audio, voice notes, video, video notes, photos, web-page previews, polls, and documents (useIndependentChatPermissions = true).

The keyboard shows ✅ for allowed, ❌ for denied, and no suffix when Telegram reports no explicit value. Clicking a button restricts the replied-to member and edits the keyboard with the refreshed state. If the command is not a valid reply, or the target is an administrator/owner rather than a normal or restricted member, the bot usually returns without a response.

Channel administrator rights

Send /rights_in_channel in a private chat with the bot. Telegram's chat/user request buttons used by this flow are available only in private chats, even though the command is registered only in the group command-menu scope.

Select a channel where the bot is already a member. The picker requests can_promote_members and can_restrict_members for both the bot and the selecting user.
Select a user, or send /cancel during either selection step.
If the selected user is currently a channel administrator, the bot sends a keyboard for refreshing or toggling post-message, edit-message, delete-message, post-story, edit-story, and delete-story rights.

Selecting a non-administrator ends the flow without a message. A stale keyboard whose target is later demoted can display Promote to admin; that action promotes the target with the post-messages right enabled. Telegram allows the bot to change an administrator's rights only when the bot promoted that administrator itself.

Callbacks are processed only when clicked by the configured allowed user. They are not explicitly answered with answerCallbackQuery, so Telegram clients may retain their loading indicator until the edit completes or the callback times out.

Setup, permissions, and security

Create a bot with @BotFather and obtain its token.
Choose one trusted Telegram numeric user ID as ALLOWED_USER_ID. /simple and all permission-changing callbacks are restricted to this ID.
Promote the bot in managed groups/channels. It needs can_restrict_members for member permissions and can_promote_members for channel administrator rights, plus enough rights to read member state and send/edit its keyboard messages. It cannot grant rights it does not possess.
BotFather privacy mode can remain enabled because the group workflows use commands, replies, and callbacks.
Treat console output as sensitive: the example prints every raw update, and handler failures print stack traces.

Current authorization caveats: /rights_in_channel has no sender filter, although its resulting mutation callbacks still require ALLOWED_USER_ID. /granular checks ALLOWED_USER_ID in normal public chats but accepts channel-post commands without that sender check; its callbacks remain protected. Keep the bot limited to trusted chats.

Long polling automatically removes an existing webhook at startup. Run only one update consumer for the token at a time.

Arguments

The bot requires the token first and the allowed numeric user ID second. Debug logging is enabled only when the third argument is exactly debug.

Launch

From the repository root:

./gradlew :RightsChangerBot:run --args="<BOT_TOKEN> <ALLOWED_USER_ID>"

./gradlew :RightsChangerBot:run --args="<BOT_TOKEN> <ALLOWED_USER_ID> debug"