Slack Chat Bot

Slack ChatBot with shortcuts forms support and Azure Boards integration.

Code Structure

• bot: source code main directory
• handlers: source for manage libs events like a new message received
• libs: source for third party libs like slack-bolt Slack client
• templates: Bot templates like Slack modal views, see Block Kit Builder, and AzureDevops payloads
• tests: source for code unit tests
• config.py: file that manages bot base configurations
• main.py: file that starts all necessary codes to run the bot
• requirements.txt: file with python required libs to run the bot
• Dockerfile: file to build a docker container to run the bot

.
|-- bot
|   |-- handlers
|   |   `-- slack
|   |       |-- handle_messages.py
|   |       |-- handle_reactions.py
|   |       `-- handle_shortcut_support.py
|   |-- libs
|   |   |-- az_devops_client.py
|   |   `-- slack_app.py
|   |-- templates
|   |   |-- azure_devops
|   |   |   |-- cloud-team.j2
|   |   |   |-- devops-team.j2
|   |   |   `-- test.j2
|   |   `-- slack
|   |       |-- cloud_shortcut_support.json
|   |       `-- devops_shortcut_support.json
|   |-- config.py
|   `-- main.py
|-- tests
|   `-- unit
|       |-- handlers
|       |   `-- slack
|       |       |-- test_handle_message.py
|       |       `-- test_handle_shortcut_support.py
|       `-- libs
|           |-- test_az_devops_client.py
|           `-- test_slack_app.py
|-- app-manifest.yml
|-- azure-pipelines.yml
|-- Dockerfile
|-- README.md
`-- requirements.txt

Contributing

Creating a new Slack App

• https://api.slack.com/authentication/basics

Configuring your dev environment

• Creating a python virtual environment:

python3 -m venv venv

source venv/bin/activate

pip install -r requirements.txt

Executing the Bot

# Load environment varibles
export AZ_DEVOPS_ORGANIZATION_URL=https://dev.azure.com/my_org \
       AZ_DEVOPS_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx \
       SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=xoxb-xxxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx \
       SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

# Start the bot locally
gunicorn --bind 0.0.0.0:5000 --reload bot.main:app

On another terminal run:

# Exposing a public url for our locally running bot
pip install ngrok

ngrok http 5000

Configuring the bot

It's recommended to create a new Slack Workspace to get full control for manage the bot installation and configuration.

Slack API -> App page -> Features -> Interactivity & Shortcuts -> Interactivity:

• Copy the url generated by ngrok and configure it in the app created.
• Add /slack/events to the url, example: http://710723d67ad9.ngrok.io/slack/events

Slack API -> App page -> Features -> Interactivity & Shortcuts -> Shortcuts:

• Create a new Global Shortcut with Name = suporte and Callback ID = suporte

Slack API -> App page -> Features -> Event Subscriptions:

• Turn on Enable Events option and paste in the url input the same ngrok url as above

Slack API -> App page -> Features -> OAuth & Permissions:

• In Bot Token Scopes add the following scopes:
  • app_mentions:read
  • channels:history
  • channels:read
  • chat:write
  • commands
  • incoming-webhook
  • reactions:write
  • users:read
  • reactions:read
  • usergroups:read

Slack API -> App Page -> Settings:

• Go to Install App and install the bot app in your Slack Workspace.
• Open Slack, go to the Workspace where the Bot was installed, create a channel and invite the bot to the channel.

References

• https://api.slack.com
• https://slack.dev/bolt-python/concepts