CheetoBot - a slack bot

Requirements

• NodeJS 9.0.0
• yarn 1.3.2
• git
• heroku (if using for deployment)

Clone the repository

C:\Users\mike> git clone git@github.com:mikeq/cheetobot.git

Install dependencies

C:\Users\mike> cd cheetobot
C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> yarn

Deploy with Heroku

Create an account on Heroku if you do not already have one

Install the heroku cli

yarn global add heroku-cli

login to heroku

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku login
Enter your Heroku credentials:       
Email: example@example.com      
Password: ************               
Logged in as example@example.com

Create a heroku app

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku create
Creating app... done, calm-caverns-70820                                                 
https://calm-caverns-70820.herokuapp.com/ | https://git.heroku.com/calm-caverns-70820.git

Heroku will create a randomly named app

Attach a mongoDB addon

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku addons:create mongolab:sandbox
Creating mongolab:sandbox on calm-caverns-70820... free
Welcome to mLab.  Your new subscription is being created and will be available shortly.  Please consult the mLab Add-on Admin UI to check on its progress.
Created mongolab-cubic-53817 as MONGODB_URI
Use heroku addons:docs mongolab to view documentation

Heroku automatically creates an environment variable that points to the mongoDB uri. You can see this in the settings page on the application page on the heroku site, or from the command line

Listing config

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku config
=== calm-caverns-70820 Config Vars
MONGODB_URI: mongodb://heroku_h2c97z7v:duts8vm0o0n849puqvdaura72k@ds257495.mlab.com:57495/heroku_h2c97z7v

Add user to access your mongoDB database

Go to the mLab mongoDB

Click the mLab MongoDB link, on the mLab page add a database user

Set mLab environment variables

Back on the command line add the user/password you set as environment variables

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku config:set mongouser=youruser
Setting mongouser and restarting calm-caverns-70820... done, v4
mongouser: youruser

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku config:set mongopass=yourpass
Setting mongopass and restarting calm-caverns-70820... done, v4
mongouser: yourpass

Your heroku application now has the ability to connect to the mLab MongoDB database

Add an application to your Slack workspace

Go to your applications page on slack. Create a new app

Choose a name for your app and the Workspace to install it to.

Add a new Bot User

Give your bot a display name and default username, then click "Add Bot User"

Install app into your Workspace

You will then have a Bot User OAuth Access token generated, copy this value

Set slack bot environment variables

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku config:set token=xoxb-271523841441-nntmjf38fxWC5eGteRkQrjdH
Setting token and restarting calm-caverns-70820... done, v6
token: xoxb-271523841441-nntmjf38fxWC5eGteRkQrjdH

Check config

You should have the following set.

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku config
=== calm-caverns-70820 Config Vars
MONGODB_URI: mongodb://heroku_h2c97z7v:duts8vm0o0n849puqvdaura72k@ds257495.mlab.com:57495/heroku_h2c97z7v
mongopass:   yourpass
mongouser:   youruser
token:       xoxb-271523841441-nntmjf38fxWC5eGteRkQrjdH

Push the code to heroku

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> git push heroku master
...

This will push the code, build and deploy it.

Start the bot worker

The bot does not require the default 'web' heroku service to run, so disable that and run the 'worker' service

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku ps:scale web=0
Scaling dynos... done, now running web at 0:Free
...
C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku ps:scale worker=1
Scaling dynos... done, now running worker at 1:Free

You can check what 'dynos' are running

C:\Users\mike\cheetobot> heroku ps
Free dyno hours quota remaining this month: 898h 19m (89%)
For more information on dyno sleeping and how to upgrade, see:
https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/dyno-sleeping

=== worker (Free): yarn bot (1)
worker.1: up 2017/11/14 13:35:56 +0000 (~ 1h ago)

Check bot is now active

Your bot should now appear active in Slack (mybot in my case)

Invite bot to channel

Invite the bot into the channel, then test with an expletive /invite @mybot

If all goes well then the bot should respond