title: How to ensure that chat_id exists?
body: <p>I wrote a piece of code which sends messages to a Telegram bot. In order to do so, I use the <code>chat_id</code> of the last conversation retrieved via the <a href="https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#getupdates" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>getUpdates</code> method</a>.</p>
  
  <pre><code>id = requests.get(f"https://api.telegram.org/bot{token}/getUpdates").json()['result'][-1]['message']['chat']['id']
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>My understanding is that the a conversation exists if someone started one with the bot via <code>/start</code>.</p>
  
  <p><strong>How can I initiate, from my code, a conversation to make sure a <code>chat_id</code> is available?</strong> (= that there is a conversion I can query).</p>
  
  <p>I am also sure that the conversations, should they exist, are not kept indefinitely (this is another reason why requesting an update can yield empty results)</p>