Course MiniApp

Telegram-native course platform: sell access, take payments, deliver video + quizzes, and manage everything from an admin panel. Built for Telegram Mini Apps, also works as standalone web.

What it does

• Turn your Telegram audience into paying students
• Accept payments: PayPal or Telegram Stars
• Deliver lessons: video (Cloudflare Stream) + markdown
• Quizzes to keep students engaged (and measure progress)
• Admin panel: users, content, basic analytics/support flows
• Multi-language: en / ru / uk

Case

You run a Telegram community and want to monetize it:

1. Upload lessons (markdown + video)
2. Set a price (PayPal / Stars)
3. Users pay -> get instant access -> watch -> pass quizzes
4. You manage everything in admin (users, activity, feedback)

Live Demo

democourse.cookiewhite.beer - full platform in demo mode.

Reliab1ty

Goal: keep prod predictable (no "works on my machine").

• config.yaml + env are validated with Zod (bad config fails fast)
• PayPal webhooks: signature verification (when env.paypal.webhookId is set) + rate limiting
• Repeated webhooks won't grant access 2x
• GET /health for monitoring (uptime, memory, env)
• Logs for key flows (DB migrations, payments, errors)
• Signed video tokens; frontend retries signed URL fetch with backoff
• botShield blocks common scanners/bots (less noise on the server)

Want more? Enable Redis (caching) and features.hidePublic (gate access: only Telegram entry, no public web).

For developers (setup / docs)

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React 19, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind, Framer Motion
• Backend: Express, TypeScript, SQLite, Redis (optional)
• Integrations: Telegram Bot API, PayPal REST API, Cloudflare Stream

Quick Start

Requirements

• Node.js >= 20
• npm (or pnpm)

Install

git clone https://github.com/CookieWhiteBear/Course-MiniAPP.git
cd Course-MiniAPP

npm install
cd server
npm install
cd ..

Dev

npm run dev:cli

Or run directly:

npm run dev:cli demo   # demo mode, Telegram not required
npm run dev:cli dev    # dev mode, Telegram auth required

This starts both: frontend 5173 and backend 3001.

Open http://localhost:5173 (demo mode works without Telegram).

Configuration

Main config lives in config.yaml (root). You can also use env vars (they take priority).

Minimal example

app:
  name: My Course Platform
  defaultCurrency: USD

env:
  nodeEnv: production
  demoMode: false
  frontendUrl: https://your-domain.com

  telegram:
    botToken: "your-bot-token"
    adminIds: [123456789]

  paypal:
    clientId: "your-client-id"
    secret: "your-secret"
    webhookId: "your-webhook-id"
    mode: live

courses:
  - id: 1
    title: My First Course
    authorId: main
    price: 29.99
    starsPrice: 500
    visibility: public

authors:
  - id: main
    name: Your Name

Full reference: docs/configuration.md

Course Content Structure

Courses live in courses/:

courses/
|-- 1/
|   |-- 1.md      # Lesson 1
|   |-- 2.md      # Lesson 2
|   `-- 3.md      # Quiz
`-- 2/
    `-- ...

Lesson Types

Text:

# Welcome to the Course

Your content in **markdown**.

Video:

# Video Lesson

<vid:cloudflare-video-id>

# or local
<vid:video.mp4>

Quiz:

<quiz:single>

# What is 2+2?

1. Three
2. Four
3. Five

<q:2>

Full format: docs/courses.md

Payments (quick)

• PayPal: set env.paypal.webhookId + webhook URL https://your-domain.com/paypal-hook
• Telegram Stars: enable payments in @BotFather and set starsPrice per course

Details: docs/payments.md

Deploy

npm run build:deploy

Healthcheck:

curl https://your-domain.com/health

Guide: docs/deployment.md

Docs

• Configuration - config.yaml reference
• Courses - content format
• API - REST endpoints
• Frontend - UI architecture
• Database - SQLite schema
• Payments - PayPal + Stars
• Video - Cloudflare Stream
• Deployment - production setup

Scripts

npm run dev:cli
npm run build
npm run lint

cd server
npm run dev
npm test

License

MIT