chatbot.diviner

@title Chat Bot Technical Documentation
@group bot

Configuring and extending the chat bot.

= Overview =

Phabricator includes a simple chat bot daemon, which is primarily intended as
an example of how you can write an external script that interfaces with
Phabricator over Conduit and does some kind of useful work. If you use IRC or
another supported chat protocol, you can also have the bot hang out in your
channel.

NOTE: The chat bot is somewhat experimental and not very mature.

= Configuring the Bot =

The bot reads a JSON configuration file. You can find an example in:

  resources/chatbot/example_config.json

These are the configuration values it reads:

  - ##server## String, required, the server to connect to.
  - ##port## Int, optional, the port to connect to (defaults to 6667).
  - ##ssl## Bool, optional, whether to connect via SSL or not (defaults to
    false).
  - ##nick## String, nickname to use.
  - ##user## String, optional, username to use (defaults to ##nick##).
  - ##pass## String, optional, password for server.
  - ##nickpass## String, optional, password for NickServ.
  - ##join## Array, list of channels to join.
  - ##handlers## Array, list of handlers to run. These are like plugins for the
    bot.
  - ##conduit.uri##, ##conduit.user##, ##conduit.cert## Conduit configuration,
    see below.
  - ##notification.channels## Notification configuration, see below.

= Handlers =

You specify a list of "handlers", which are basically plugins or modules for
the bot. These are the default handlers available:

  - @{class:PhabricatorBotObjectNameHandler} This handler looks for users
    mentioning Phabricator objects like "T123" and "D345" in chat, looks them
    up, and says their name with a link to the object. Requires conduit.
  - @{class:PhabricatorBotFeedNotificationHandler} This handler posts
    notifications about changes to revisions to the channels listed in
    ##notification.channels##.
  - @{class:PhabricatorBotLogHandler} This handler records chatlogs which can
    be browsed in the Phabricator web interface.
  - @{class:PhabricatorBotSymbolHandler} This handler posts responses to lookups
    for symbols in Diffusion
  - @{class:PhabricatorBotMacroHandler} This handler looks for users mentioning
    macros, if found will convert image to ASCII and output in chat. Configure
    with ##macro.size## and ##macro.aspect##

You can also write your own handlers, by extending
@{class:PhabricatorBotHandler}.

= Conduit =

Some handlers (e.g., @{class:PhabricatorBotObjectNameHandler}) need to read data
from Phabricator over Conduit, Phabricator's HTTP API. You can use this method
to allow other scripts or programs to access Phabricator's data from different
servers and in different languages.

To allow the bot to access Conduit, you need to create a user that it can login
with. To do this, login to Phabricator as an administrator and go to
`People -> Create New Account`. Create a new account and flag them as a
"Bot/Script". Then in your configuration file, set these parameters:

  - ##conduit.uri## The URI for your Phabricator install, like
    ##http://phabricator.example.com/##
  - ##conduit.user## The username your bot should login to Phabricator with --
    whatever you selected above, like ##phabot##.
  - ##conduit.cert## The user's certificate, from the "Conduit Certificate" tab
    in the user's administrative view.

Now the bot should be able to connect to Phabricator via Conduit.

= Starting the Bot =

The bot is a Phabricator daemon, so start it with ##phd##:

  ./bin/phd launch phabricatorbot <absolute_path_to_config_file>

If you have issues you can try ##debug## instead of ##launch##, see
@{article:Managing Daemons with phd} for more information.