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NOTE:

This sample project uses Heroku's free-tier to host the chat bot. Heroku's pricing change will be removing their free-tier and there are no plans to move this sample chat bot project to a paid-tier. While this project can still be used, the project will no longer be actively maintained.

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messenger-chatbot

A simple Facebook Messenger chat bot using Heroku + Firebase

Q: Why not just use one or the other?

A: Hosting Messenger chatbot using Firebase Functions would require external invocations - which is currently only available on Paid Plan. See Functions > Outbound Networking. Also, I want to demonstrate Firebase Realtime Database using javascript.

Try Magic X Ball Messenger Bot now.

Setup

1. Install Heroku CLI. Create an account on Heroku if you don't have one.

2. Install nodejs. Open your terminal and make sure that you have the updated version. If you're having issues with your npm version, you may use nvm and follow this guide here

   sudo npm install -g npm 
   npm -v       // Check npm version
   

3. Create a folder for your project and create a initialize a new Node project.

   npm init
   

4. Install additional Node dependencies. Express is for the server, request is for sending out messages, and body-parser is to process messages.

   npm install express request body-parser --save
   

5. Follow steps on Facebook docs for the setup of your Messenger chatbot and getting the required API Keys.

6. You may use the index.js on this project as a base and fill the required API Keys for your app to work.

   const token = "FB_PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN"

   Get the Page Access Token by following the Step 3 of the docs.

7. This app mimics a Magic 8 Ball. The bot will only accept answers when called as 'magic ball' or 'magicball'. An answer will be detected if the message from the user has a '?' at the end of the sentence.

   var engaged = false;  // set as false by default
   if (messageText) {
     // If we receive a text message, check to see if it matches a keyword
     // and send back an answer. Otherwise, ask the question again.
     if (messageText.toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g, '')includes("magicball")){
       engaged = true; // Start accepting questions
       sendTextMessage(senderID, "Yes?");
     } else if (engaged && messageText.toLowerCase().includes("?")) {
       engaged = false;  // Once question is answered - set to false again
       sendAnswer(senderID);
     } else if (engaged){
       sendTextMessage(senderID, "Could you repeat your question again?");
     }
   } else if (messageAttachments) {
     sendTextMessage(senderID, "Message with attachment received");
   }

8. For Firebase, currently, we'll only be using Realtime Database to fetch data. Create an account on Firebase if you don't have one.

9. For Realtime Datbase, you may follow the quickstart guide here. You can find your Realtime Database URL in the Database tab in the Firebase console. It will be in the form of https://.firebaseio.com.

   /** Firebase **/
   var firebase = require("firebase");
   // Set the configuration for your app
   var firebaseConfig = {
     apiKey: "FIREBASE_API_KEY",  // Firebase Console > Project > Settings > Web API Key
     authDomain: "<APP_CODE>.firebaseapp.com",
     databaseURL: "https://<APP_CODE>.firebaseio.com",	// This chatbot only utilizes Firebase RTDB
     storageBucket: "<APP_CODE>.appspot.com"
   };
   firebase.initializeApp(firebaseConfig);
   // Get a reference to the database service
   var database = firebase.database();

10. Reading from Firebase Realtime Database. You may read the docs here.

    function sendAnswer(senderID){
      let listAnswers = [];
      database.ref('xball/answers').once('value').then(function(snapshot) {
        snapshot.forEach(function(childSnapshot) {
          var answer = {};	// initialize new object
          // key
          answer['answerType'] = childSnapshot.key;
          // childData
          answer['answerText'] = childSnapshot.val();
          listAnswers.push(answer);
          console.log("sendAnswer " + answer.answerType + " " + answer.answerText);
        });
        let min = Math.ceil(0), max = Math.floor(Object.keys(listAnswers).length);
        // Generate random num
        let randNum = Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min + 1)) + min;
        console.log("sendAnswer [" + randNum + "] ");
        sendTextMessage(senderID, listAnswers[randNum].answerText);
      });
    }

    The data is based from the list of possible answers of a Magic 8 Ball

    

11. Create a file named Procfile and copy the line below. This is so Heroku can know what file to run.

    web: node index.js
    

12. Commit all the code with Git then create a new Heroku instance and push the code to the cloud.

    git init
    git add .
    git commit --message "Initial commit"
    heroku create  // This will create a new project on Heroku, do this if you don't have a project for your chatbot yet.
    git push heroku master
    

13. Test your bot

14. Make your bot public! Try this bot now - Magic X Ball

    • You may share your bot by sharing its link https://m.me/<PAGE_USERNAME>
    • If you haven't published your bot yet, it can only respond to registered Developers/Testers on your Facebook App
    • Publish your Facebook App (Messenger Bot) by following their guide here.

Sources

This won't be possible without the sources from:

• Facebook Messenger Platform guide link
• Firebase docs link
• jw84/messenger-bot-tutorial link