Multi-Source to Multi-Target Routing

Why lists, not one source per task

Duplicating a task per source was the old workaround: same cleaner, same filters, same footer, N times to maintain.

• One policy edit applies to every source and every target of that task.
• Statistics, queue depth and dead letters stay aggregated per task instead of scattered across clones.
• Adding a source or a target is a list mutation, not a new task with its own session and schedule.
• The primary source and primary target are derived from the lists — never configured twice.

The data model

A task carries source_chat_ids and target_chat_ids. The first entry is mirrored into the legacy scalar fields (source_chat_id, target_chat_id) by a single sanctioned write path, set_targets(), which accepts ids, titles, or both and always leaves the pair consistent.

Readers are defensive: when the mirror is empty — for example on a row written by an older release — the destination is resolved from the list itself. That is what makes the format backward compatible without a migration.

{
  "name": "Desk feed → VIP + free tier",
  "source_chat_ids": ["@desk_feed", "-1001695513745"],
  "target_chat_ids": ["-1002000000001", "-1002000000002"],
  "mode": "copy",
  "priority": 10,
  "content_policy": { "enabled": true, "remove_links": true }
}

Per-target addressing

• Every target entry keeps its own title, so dashboards and the bot show a human name next to the numeric id.
• Forum topics are addressed per target with message_thread_id: a task can post to a topic in one supergroup and a plain channel in the same run.
• Copy mode drops the forward tag; direct forward keeps the native quote header. The mode is a task property, applied to every target.
• A target that rejects writes auto-disables that task instead of retrying forever.

Adding sources and targets from the CLI

# create a task with two sources and two targets in one shot
atf rules create --name "Desk feed" \
  --source @desk_feed --source -1001695513745 \
  --target -1002000000001 --target -1002000000002

# mutate the lists later
atf rules sources <task-id> list
atf rules sources <task-id> add @second_desk
atf rules sources <task-id> remove @desk_feed

# see the resolved route, including which target gets what
atf rules path <task-id>

Frequently asked