Documentation
Everything you need to set up and manage Lil' John AI community bot for your Telegram groups.
Getting Started
Lil' John is an AI-powered community management bot for Telegram. It answers questions about your project using your own knowledge base, blocks spam, and provides analytics — all on autopilot.
Quick Start (3 steps)
- Sign up — Create an account at liljohn.ai/signup
- Add the bot — Add @Lil_Johnbot to your Telegram group and make it an admin
- Upload knowledge — Add your project's FAQ, whitepaper, or website URL from the dashboard
Adding the Bot
To add Lil' John to your Telegram group, follow these steps:
Step 1: Invite the Bot
Search for @Lil_Johnbot in Telegram and add it to your group. Alternatively, use the direct link from your dashboard.
Step 2: Grant Admin Permissions
The bot needs admin permissions to function. Go to your group settings, find Lil' John in the members list, and promote it to admin. Required permissions:
- Delete messages (for spam removal)
- Ban users (for blocking spammers)
- Pin messages (optional, for broadcasts)
Step 3: Connect in Dashboard
Go to your dashboard, click Add Group, and select the group from the list. The bot will confirm the connection in your group chat.
Knowledge Base
The knowledge base is the core of Lil' John. It stores your project's information and uses it to answer community questions accurately.
Adding Content
There are three ways to add content to your knowledge base:
- PDF Upload — Upload your whitepaper, documentation, or any PDF. The bot extracts and indexes the text automatically.
- Website URL — Paste a URL and the bot will crawl the page, extract content, and add it to the knowledge base.
- Manual FAQ — Type question-answer pairs directly in the dashboard for precise control over responses.
How It Works
When a user asks a question, the bot searches your knowledge base using semantic similarity. It finds the most relevant chunks of information and generates a natural-language answer. The bot only responds with information from your verified knowledge base — it never makes things up.
Spam Protection
Lil' John provides multi-layered spam protection to keep your community clean and safe.
Link Whitelist
Add your project's official domains and links to the whitelist. Any message containing a non-whitelisted URL is automatically deleted, and the sender receives a warning.
AI Spam Detection (Pro)
The Pro plan includes AI-powered content analysis that detects sophisticated spam even without links. This catches:
- Scam messages and phishing attempts
- Forwarded promotional messages
- Impersonation of admins or team members
- Repeated copypasta and raid messages
Auto-Ban Rules
Configure automatic bans after a certain number of spam warnings. Default is 3 warnings before ban. Adjust this in your dashboard settings.
Broadcasting
Send announcements to all your connected groups simultaneously from the dashboard.
Creating a Broadcast
- Go to the Broadcasts tab in your dashboard
- Compose your message with Markdown formatting
- Select which groups should receive the message
- Preview and send
Broadcasts support text, images, and buttons. You can also schedule broadcasts for a specific date and time.
Social Media
Connect your project's social media accounts to display real-time updates in your Telegram groups.
Supported Platforms
- Twitter / X — Auto-forward new tweets to your groups
- Medium — Share new blog posts automatically
- YouTube — Notify groups of new video uploads
Setup
Navigate to the Social Media tab in your dashboard. Click "Connect Account" and follow the OAuth flow for each platform. Once connected, new posts are forwarded to your selected groups automatically.
Analytics
Track your community's health and engagement with built-in analytics.
Available Metrics
- Messages per day — Track group activity over time
- QnA usage — See how many questions the bot answered and what topics are popular
- Spam blocked — Monitor spam volume and the bot's effectiveness
- Member growth — Track joins and leaves over time
Analytics are accessible from the dashboard. Pro plan includes CSV export and 90-day history. Starter plan keeps 7 days of history.
Settings
Configure Lil' John to match your community's needs.
Bot Personality
Customize the bot's tone and personality. Choose from presets (Professional, Friendly, Casual) or write a custom system prompt. The bot will adapt its responses to match.
Response Language
By default, the bot auto-detects the user's language and responds accordingly. You can override this to force a single language for all responses.
Quiet Hours
Set time windows during which the bot will not respond to questions. Spam protection remains active during quiet hours.
Admin Notifications
Configure alerts for important events: spam spikes, new member surges, or when the bot can't answer a question (knowledge gap detection).
LF Arena
LF Arena is Lil' John's crypto price prediction game. Community members make predictions on token prices and compete on a leaderboard.
How It Works
- Users make a prediction on whether a token's price will go up or down within a time window
- Correct predictions earn points based on the confidence level and timeframe
- A live leaderboard tracks the top predictors in each group
Supported Tokens
LF Arena supports all major tokens with real-time price feeds. The default list includes BTC, ETH, SOL, and 50+ other tokens. Custom token support is available on the Pro plan.
API Reference
Enterprise customers can access the Lil' John API for custom integrations and advanced automation.
Authentication
All API requests require a Bearer token. Generate your API key from the dashboard under Settings → API.
Endpoints
- GET /v1/groups — List all connected groups
- GET /v1/analytics — Retrieve analytics data
- POST /v1/knowledge — Add knowledge base entries
- POST /v1/broadcast — Send a broadcast message
- GET /v1/spam/stats — Spam detection statistics
Rate Limits
API requests are rate-limited to 100 requests per minute. Contact support for higher limits on Enterprise plans.