I built a task manager inside Telegram — and censorship made me a better engineer

Pavel Glazkov — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 06:16:28 +0000

I got tired of switching between Telegram and our project management tool dozens
of times a day. The team was already in Telegram — why wasn't the work?

So I built iTasks: a full task tracker that runs as a Telegram Mini App.
No install, no sign-up — just open the bot and start working. Kanban board,
time tracking, file attachments, workflow automation, voice rooms for the team.
Built on Node + React.

Why Telegram specifically?

Telegram is the closest thing we have to a truly independent platform. No
predatory commissions, no arbitrary rule changes overnight, no app store
gatekeeping. It's always in your pocket, and I genuinely believe it's becoming
the global WeChat — a super-app that people live inside of.

Building on Telegram felt like building on solid ground.

Then reality hit

I assumed the hard parts would be product decisions. I was wrong.

The real challenge turned out to be digital geography.

Problem #1: CDN blocked.
I was using DigitalOcean Spaces for file attachments. Turns out DigitalOcean
is blocked in certain countries. Users couldn't load their own attachments.

The fix: I built a proxy layer — all media now routes through the app server
itself when direct CDN access fails. Automatic, transparent to the user.

Problem #2: Telegram voice calls blocked.
Russia blocks Telegram's native voice infrastructure. A "built-in voice rooms"
feature that silently doesn't work is worse than no feature at all.

The fix: I deployed my own LiveKit servers. LiveKit is
an open-source WebRTC infrastructure — self-hosted, fully under my control.
Now voice rooms work independently of Telegram's own voice infrastructure.
Russian users can actually talk to their teammates.

What started as a product feature became a small piece of
censorship-circumvention infrastructure.

Where it is now

iTasks launched recently and is in active user testing. A few teams have been
using it daily for three months — including our own team, which has been the
most honest QA process imaginable.

Free forever for teams up to 3 people. For larger teams — PRO at 499 Telegram
Stars/month.

If you're building on Telegram or dealing with the same geo-blocking headaches,
I'd love to compare notes. And if you want to try it — @iTasksBot on Telegram.

→ Landing: itasksbot.com

→ Bot: t.me/iTasksBot

Forem: Pavel Glazkov

I built a task manager inside Telegram — and censorship made me a better engineer

Why Telegram specifically?

Then reality hit

Where it is now