The problem
Steam runs sales constantly. Hundreds of games go on discount every day, but the overwhelming majority are shovelware, asset flips, or titles with mixed reviews buried under a 90% discount badge. Sorting through the noise manually is tedious, and existing deal aggregators surface raw lists with no quality signal. Steam Deals AI solves this by combining hard deterministic rules with an AI curation step — so only deals that genuinely deserve your attention reach your Telegram chat.How it works
Deals pass through two sequential layers before they are ever sent to subscribers: Layer 1 — Deterministic filter (no cost) The bot fetches deals from the CheapShark API and immediately drops any deal that fails a configurable quality bar:| Rule | Default |
|---|---|
| Minimum discount | 50% |
| Minimum Metacritic score | 70 |
| Minimum Steam rating | 70% |
| Maximum price after discount | $60 USD |
The AI is a second layer on top of the deterministic filter, not the sole judge. A deal must pass both layers to reach subscribers. This keeps AI costs low and prevents hallucinated recommendations for games that are simply cheap but low-quality.
Key technologies
- Telegraf — TypeScript framework for the Telegram Bot API
- OpenAI GPT-4o-mini — AI curation layer
- CheapShark API — Source of Steam deal data
- node-cron — Daily scheduled broadcasts (default: 9:00 AM)
Prerequisites
Before you start, make sure you have:- Node.js >= 20 — the bot uses native ESM and modern TypeScript features
- Telegram bot token — obtained from @BotFather on Telegram
- OpenAI API key — from platform.openai.com
Next steps
Quickstart
Get from zero to receiving your first curated deal list in minutes.
Architecture
Understand the two-layer pipeline, caching, and scheduling internals.
Configuration
Tune filter thresholds, the cron schedule, and rate limits.
Commands
Full reference for all bot commands available to subscribers.