.. | ||
CommuteBot | ||
DefineBot | ||
HowdoiBot | ||
__init__.py | ||
commute_bot.py | ||
define_bot.py | ||
followup.py | ||
git_hub_comment.py | ||
github.py | ||
github_issues.py | ||
help.py | ||
howdoi_bot.py | ||
readme-github-comment-bot.md | ||
readme.md | ||
virtual_fs.py | ||
wikipedia.py |
Overview
This is the documentation for an experimental new system for writing bots that react to messages.
This directory contains library code for running Zulip bots that react to messages sent by users.
This document explains how to run the code, and it also talks about the architecture for creating bots.
Design goals
The goal is to have a common framework for hosting a bot that reacts to messages in any of the following settings:
-
Run as a long-running process using
call_on_each_event
(implemented today). -
Run via a simple web service that can be deployed to PAAS providers and handles outgoing webhook requests from Zulip.
-
Embedded into the Zulip server (so that no hosting is required), which would be done for high quality, reusable bots; we would have a nice "bot store" sort of UI for browsing and activating them.
Running bots
Here is an example of running the "follow-up" bot from inside a Zulip repo:
cd ~/zulip/contrib_bots
./run.py lib/followup.py --config-file ~/.zuliprc-prod
Once the bot code starts running, you will see a
message explaining how to use the bot, as well as
some log messages. You can use the --quiet
option
to suppress these messages.
The bot code will run continuously until you kill them with control-C (or otherwise).
Zulip Configuration
For this document we assume you have some prior experience
with using the Zulip API, but here is a quick review of
what a .zuliprc
files looks like. You can connect to the
API as your own human user, or you can go into the Zulip settings
page to create a user-owned bot.
[api]
email=someuser@example.com
key=<your api key>
site=https://zulip.somewhere.com
Third Party Configuration
If your bot interacts with a non-Zulip service, you may have to configure keys or usernames or URLs or similar information to hit the other service.
Do not put third party configuration information in your
.zuliprc
file. Do not put third party configuration
information anywhere in your Zulip directory. Instead,
create a separate configuration file for the third party's
configuration in your home directory.
Python dependencies
If your module requires Python modules that are not either part of the standard Python library or the Zulip API distribution, we ask that you put a comment at the top of your bot explaining how to install the dependencies.
Right now we don't support any kind of automatic build environment for bots, so it's currently up to the users of the bots to manage their dependencies. This may change in the future.
Architecture
In order to make bot development easy, we separate out boilerplate code (loading up the Client API, etc.) from bot-specific code (do what makes the bot unique).
All of the boilerplate code lives in ../run.py
. The
runner code does things like find where it can import
the Zulip API, instantiate a client with correct
credentials, set up the logging level, find the
library code for the specific bot, etc.
Then, for bot-specific logic, you will find .py
files
in the lib
directory (i.e. the same directory as the
document you are reading now).
Each bot library simply needs to do the following:
- Define a class that supports the methods
usage
,triage_message
, andhandle_message
. - Set
handler_class
to be the name of that class.
(We make this a two-step process, so that you can give a descriptive name to your handler class.)
Portability
Creating a handler class for each bot allows your bot
code to be more portable. For example, if you want to
use your bot code in some other kind of bot platform, then
if all of your bots conform to the handler_class
protocol,
you can write simple adapter code to use them elsewhere.
Another future direction to consider is that Zulip will eventually support running certain types of bots on the server side, to essentially implement post-send hooks and things of those nature.
Conforming to the handler_class
protocol will make
it easier for Zulip admins to integrate custom bots.
In particular, run.py
already passes in instances
of a restricted variant of the Client class to your
library code, which helps you ensure that your bot
does only things that would be acceptable for running
in a server-side environment.
Other approaches
If you are not interested in running your bots on the server, then you can still use the full Zulip API. The hope, though, is that this architecture will make writing simple bots a quick/easy process.