timbot2

Timbot2 makes it easy to create a bot with custom actions for your slack channel. Timbot2 uses botkit. It should restart on it's own if it disconnects. Look at botkit's slack readme to find information about what channels timbot2 custom actions should be set to and understand controller actions.

Installation

• Install timbot2 globally.

npm install timbot2 --global

• Create a custom integration bot at slack.
• Fill out the settings and save the api token.
• Save the token in an .env file saved in the directory timbot2 will run.
• Invite your bot to your slack channel.

.env file

SLACK_TOKEN=token

Create a custom command

Creating custom actions for your bot is very easy. Although it's possible to do this without using typescript, it's much easier with it.

• Create a new npm project (npm init)
• Save timbot2 (npm install --save timbot2)
• Save to dev typescript (npm install --save-dev typescript)
• Create your custom command using typescript
• Custom command class name must be the same as its filename.
• Compile (tsc)
• run (timbot2)

Example - Pizza (Pizza.ts)

import {BotListener} from "timbot2/lib/BotListener";

export class Pizza extends BotListener {
  name = "pizza"; //required
  desc = "Yum, pizza"; // required

  // not required; defaults to false
  // if set true, doesn't show up in help
  hidden = true;

  // not required, defaults to true
  // if set to false, does not run
  // in the custom listener
  // possibly use it in combo with env variable.
  active = true;

  // not extended from BotListener variable
  channels = ['direct_message','direct_mention','mention','ambient'];

  // required function
  start() {

    var Pizza = this;
    Pizza.controller.hears('pizza', this.channels, function(bot,message) {

      // reply
      Pizza.reply(bot, message, "pizza? I want pizza");
      // reply as code
      Pizza.replyCode(bot, message, "pizza" I want pizza");


    // to use reply
    });
  }
}

Example - package.json

{
  "name": "timbot2-custom-examples",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "compile": "tsc"
  },
  "author": "tmitim",
  "license": "MIT",
  "dependencies": {
    "timbot2": "^0.1.2
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "typescript": "^2.1.5"
  }
}

Example tsconfig.json

{
    "compilerOptions": {
        "module": "commonjs",
        "target": "es5",
        "noImplicitAny": false,
        "sourceMap": false
    }
}

Note

• Due to the botkit, timbot2 will only take action to the first message it "hears". So if two custom actions overlap, only the first action can be heard.

Dependencies

• botkit: Building blocks for Building Bots
• dotenv: Loads environment variables from .env file

Dev Dependencies

• @types/node: TypeScript definitions for Node.js
• typescript: TypeScript is a language for application scale JavaScript development

License

MIT