Building A Slackbot

Hackpack for VandyHack's Slackbot workshop on July 11th. This bot's functionality includes creating task reminders and group polls.

What exactly is a bot?

A bot is both a system user and an application operating inside an infrastructure. Bots are particularly useful for performing small, repetitive tasks in user workspaces.

A Slackbot is simply a type of Slack App that interacts with users via conversation.

What is an API?

An Application Programming Interface (API) is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. An API specifies how software components should interact by providing a set of pre-implemented methods/variables/classes for building software applications. For example, the Slack APIs are used for Slack app development.

Key Terms

• Slash command: acts as a shortcut that triggers messages or actions from Slack, an app, or an integration
• Message payload: a JSON object that is used to define metadata about the message, such as its visual composition and where it should be published

Usage

This bot responds to four slash commands:

• /pat - Creates a reminder for a channel; usage hint: /pat [timeString] , [message]

• /pat2 - Creates a reminder for a specific user; usage hint: /pat2 [@user] [time] , [message]

• /newpoll - Creates a new poll in a channel; usage hint: /newpoll [pollQuestion]? [option1] , [option2] , ...

• /closepoll - Closes the current poll in a channel; usage hint: /closepoll

Bolt & Glitch

We used Bolt & Glitch to create this JavaScript-based Slackbot. Bolt is the official Node.js framework for JavaScript-based Slack app development. Glitch is a collaborative platform for creating, remixing and hosting web apps in real time.

Your Project

• app.js contains the primary Bolt app. It imports the Bolt package (@slack/bolt) and starts the Bolt app's server. It's where you'll add your app's listeners.
• .env is where you'll put your Slack app's authorization token and signing secret.
• The examples/ folder contains a couple of other sample apps that you can peruse to your liking. They show off a few platform features that your app may want to use.

Slackbot Workshop Slides

Read the Bolt documentation & Getting Started guide

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