Zowe Chat

Zowe Chat is a chatting application for you to operate z/OS itself including job, dataset, USS file, error code, console command etc. from channels of 3 popular chat tools including Mattermost, Slack, Microsoft Teams. Extendibility also is provided for users to create their own plugins to extend capabilities of Zowe Chat as plugins.

Content

• Features
• Projects
• Documentation
• Contribution guidelines
• Steps to build Zowe Chat
• Steps to run Zowe Chat server

Features

• Operate z/OS job
• Operate z/OS dataset
• Operate z/OS USS file
• Query z/OS error code
• Issue z/OS console command
• Extendibility with plugin

Projects

There are four projects below under Zowe Chat repository.

• @zowe/chat
• @zowe/zos
• @zowe/clicmd
• @zowe/webapp

Documentation

For detailed information about how to install, configure, and use Zowe Chat, see Zowe Chat Documentation.

Contribution guidelines

The following information is critical to working with the code, running/writing/maintaining automated tests, developing consistent syntax in your plug-in, and ensuring that your plug-in integrates with Zowe CLI properly:

For more information about ...	See:
General guidelines that apply to contributing to Zowe Chat	Contribution Guidelines
Documentation that describes the features of the Common Bot Framework	About Common Bot Framework

Steps to build Zowe Chat

• Environment variables

  • NODE_ENV

    Specifies the building environment for your mono-repo

  • RELEASE_TYPE

    Specifies the release type of your building result

  • RELEASE_VERSION

    Specifies the release version of your building result

• Build steps

  • Clone the repo
  • Go to the directory where Zowe Chat repo is cloned
  • Run the command below to build the whole workspaces

    npm run installAll
    npm run buildAll

    Note: You can also to build single project by specifying the detailed project name. e.g. use the command npm run build --workspace=@zowe/chat to build only chat project.

Steps to run Zowe Chat server

• Prerequisite: the connection with your chat tool and related bot app are ready

• Run from local laptop for development

  Note: Depending on chat tool requirement and your laptop network environment, not all chat clients will work when running the project locally (i.e. MSTeams)

  • Execute npm run buildAll to build all projects
  • Execute npm run startLocal to set up a local environment in the folder $PROJECT_ROOT/.build based on the previous build result

    Note: This will fail on first invocation.

  • Configure your local environment in the $PROJECT_ROOT/.build/zoweChat/config folder
  • Re-execute npm run startLocal command to start Zowe Chat server locally

    Note: This will not over-write changes to your configuration

  • Launch your chat tool client and chat with your bot

• Run from your xLinux or zLinux server for production

  • Execute npm run packagingAll to build and package the project

    Note: Your must set the three required environment variables (NODE_ENV, RELEASE_TYPE, RELEASE_VERSION) for packaging first

  • Upload your building result $PROJECT_ROOT/release/zowe-chat-v<version>-.tar.gz to your Linux server
  • Logon your Linux server, create one folder and unpack the building result there
  • Set and update required environment variables

     export ZOWE_CHAT_HOME=<your created folder>/zoweChat
     export ZOWE_CHAT_PLUGIN_HOME=<your created folder>/plugins
     export PATH=$PATH:$ZOWE_CHAT_HOME/bin

  • Update the plugin configuration file $ZOWE_CHAT_PLUGIN_HOME/plugin.yaml if necessary
  • Execute the commands below to install local dependencies

    cd $ZOWE_CHAT_HOME/node_modules/i18next
    npm link
    cd  $ZOWE_CHAT_PLUGIN_HOME/@zowe/clicmd
    npm link $ZOWE_CHAT_HOME
    npm link i18next
    cd  $ZOWE_CHAT_PLUGIN_HOME/@zowe/zos
    npm link $ZOWE_CHAT_HOME
    npm link i18next

  • Update Zowe Chat, chat tool and z/OSMF server configuration per your environment

    $ZOWE_CHAT_HOME/config/chatServer.yaml
    $ZOWE_CHAT_HOME/config/zosmfServer.yaml
    $ZOWE_CHAT_HOME/config/chatTools/<mattermost | msteams | slack>.yaml

  • Execute chatsvr start to start your Zowe Chat server
    • chatsvr status - Check your Zowe Chat server status
    • chatsvr stop - Stop your Zowe Chat server
    • chatsvr restart - Restart your Zowe Chat server
  • Launch your chat tool client and chat with your bot

Hosting infrastructure for this project is supported by: