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Set up a witness bot

Let a separate process check the journal and publish signed checkpoints to your channel.

Two hosts, two signing keys

Prepare a bot and a channel

Create a bot with BotFather and allow it to post in a channel you control. Choose a computer or server for the witness. A separate host and operator provide stronger independence than a second process on the collector’s server.

Three steps in Extras

1. Read-only access. Open Extras → A bot in your channel, create a witness token and save the access file. It allows reading checkpoints and health, not conversations or collector controls.
2. Channel and interval. Enter the channel and a collector address reachable from the witness. Save the settings file.
3. Launch. Put witness.json, witness-token.txt and a bot-token.txt created on the witness host together. Run the commands below in the installed project environment.

python -m tgwitness.witness run --config witness.json --check-config
python -m tgwitness.witness run --config witness.json

Downloading the files does not start the witness. Check that the first signed post appears in the channel, then retain the witness’s public-key fingerprint separately.

Choose how often to publish

Publishing every check creates a regular external record. At five-minute intervals, that is about 288 posts per workspace per day. The advanced settings also offer publication on changes or problems, a proxy and a custom Bot API address.

Check the evidence later

Keep the witness journal, channel posts and independently saved fingerprints. The full verification procedure compares them with the collector’s signed export.