Installation

Requirements

  • PHP 8.5 or higher (the framework uses readonly properties, backed enums, and declare(strict_types=1) everywhere).
  • PHP extensions: pdo, mbstring, json, and — if you use Redis — either the redis extension or predis/predis (already installed as a dependency, so the native extension isn't required).
  • Composer 2.x.
  • A Doctrine DBAL-supported database: SQLite, MySQL/MariaDB, or PostgreSQL. For a quick start, use SQLite — no separate server required, and it works well on shared hosting.

Installing with Composer

composer require aicrion/tandroid

This pulls in Symfony DependencyInjection, EventDispatcher, Cache, Config, Yaml, Messenger, HttpClient, VarExporter, as well as Doctrine ORM/DBAL/Migrations and predis/predis — no other manual dependencies needed.

Why symfony/var-exporter? Doctrine ORM 3.x builds lazy-loaded entity proxies (e.g. for unfetched relations) using either native PHP 8.4+ lazy objects or Symfony's LazyGhostTrait. Since the framework's minimum requirement is PHP 8.5, this dependency is pulled in automatically to guarantee proxies work correctly on every supported PHP version. If you ever see Symfony LazyGhost is not available, it means this package is missing or outdated — running composer require symfony/var-exporter:^7.1 (or simply composer update) resolves it.

Host Application Structure

The framework is designed as a library, not a project skeleton. A typical host application looks like this:

my-bot/
├── config/
│   └── aicrion.yaml        # main configuration
├── plugins/
│   └── my-plugin/          # every bot feature is a plugin
│       ├── manifest.php
│       └── src/
├── public/
│   └── webhook.php         # webhook mode entry point
├── bin/
│   └── poll.php             # polling mode entry point
├── var/
│   ├── cache/               # filesystem cache (fallback)
│   └── data.sqlite          # default SQLite database
├── vendor/
└── composer.json

You can copy this very repository as a starter skeleton; public/webhook.php, bin/poll.php, and config/aicrion.yaml are ready to go, and the plugins/greeter sample plugin shows what a real plugin looks like.

Setting Up the Bot Token

  1. Create a bot with @BotFather and copy the token.
  2. Set it as an environment variable (recommended — never hardcode the token in aicrion.yaml):
export AICRION_BOT_TOKEN="123456:ABC-your-token"
  1. Check config/aicrion.yaml (it already works out of the box because it uses %env(...)%):
bot:
  token: '%env(AICRION_BOT_TOKEN)%'
  mode: webhook # webhook | polling

The full config system is documented in Configuration.

Running Your First Bot

With the sample greeter plugin bundled in the skeleton, you can test immediately:

Polling Mode (for local development)

php bin/poll.php

This runs an infinite loop with a 200ms pause between each getUpdates call; press Ctrl+C to stop.

Webhook Mode (for production / shared hosting)

  1. Upload public/ to a server with valid HTTPS.
  2. Register the webhook with Telegram:
curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot$AICRION_BOT_TOKEN/setWebhook?url=https://your-domain.com/webhook.php"

or using the framework's WebhookManager class:

use Aicrion\Tandroid\Api\Telegram;

Telegram::webhook()->set('https://your-domain.com/webhook.php');

Send /start to the bot and plugins/greeter/src/StartActivity.php will fire, replying with a welcome message and a "My Profile" button.

Next Step

The Kernel and Boot Lifecycle chapter explains exactly what happens when Kernel::boot() is called.

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