MatrixByteBot

Description

A bot living in the channels of the Erfurt Hackspace 'Bytespeicher' or the Makerspace, serving its users.

Interfacing a matrix network, using the matrix-sdk. Written in Python 3.6.

Status

Concept phase and build environment setup
Prototyping login and triggering
Implementing standard and maintenance plugins
Re-implementing IRC-Bot plugins

Checked with Codacy

Build instructions

build environment

base system

• WinPython 3.6.6.2 including Python 3.6.6
• Also tested with Python 3.5 on Debian Linux 9 (Stretch)
• pip 18.1
• virtualenv 16.0.0
• tmux for start/stop/update scripts on Linux

Inside a python virtual environment

• the matrix sdk package https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-python-sdk
• schedule package https://pypi.org/project/schedule/

Tipp

• if dependency building fails for obscure reasons, delete Pipfile and re-add dependencies manually via pipenv

development hints

• subclass Plugin in plugin.py for own plugins
• (re-)implement at least
• __init__() for setting up the plugin
• callback() for the code to be executed on keyword recognition
• get_help() to return a short help text and usage description

Setup

• call superclass constructor with Plugin.__init__(self, name, bot)
• register regex match rules like self.add_matcher(re.compile("![Dd]ates")) (you can add multiple)
• register scheduled calls like bot.schedule.every(1).minutes.do(self.dates_announce_next_talks)
• save reference to bot for later use in scheduled tasks if needed (e.g. as self.bot)

callback

• send messages via room.send_text()
• get calling command via event['content']['body'] for further analysis or matching

get_help()

• return string for us ein !help command.
• approx. one line per command/function
• use "\n" in string for line breaks

scheduled tasks

• any function or method can be scheduled via registration in __init__
• there is no room or event parameter, so send messages to all rooms via self.bot.all_rooms.send_text()

Usage instructions

1. Change private_settings.py with username, password, servername and room
2. use 'git update-index --assume-unchanged private_settings.py' to no longer track changes and not accidentally upload your password
3. Start a tmux session with tmux new -d -s bytebot (only needed once per reboot)
4. Start with ./start.sh (will start the bot inside a tmux shell by the name of 'bytebot')
5. add ./gitupdate.sh to your crontab if you want to track github changes to the current branch (bot will stop, update, restart if changes are available)
6. use 'tmux a -t bytebot' to connect to the session and see the terminal printout
7. use ./stop.sh to stop the process (but keep the tmux session)
8. use 'tmux kill-session -t bytebot' to also close the session

License and Credits

See LICENSE file for GPLv3 license of this software.

Uses (but not includes) packages and libraries as listed above and below. Links to original sources are given as documentation and credit to the authors.

Uses Scriptacular - gitupdate.sh Copyright 2013 Christopher Simpkins MIT License

schedule python package https://pypi.org/project/schedule/ Daniel Bader - @dbader_org - mailto://mail@dbader.org MIT license

pytest - Python testing framework https://pytest.org MIT License

python-codacy-coverage https://github.com/codacy/python-codacy-coverage BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License

pytest-cov - coverage plugin for pytest https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-cov MIT License

Based on (and contains snipets of code from) https://github.com/Bytespeicher/Bytebot MIT License

See LICENCSE_MIT file for the license text.

The matrix bot api at https://github.com/shawnanastasio/python-matrix-bot-api GPLv3 License was part of this project but has since been completely removed.