…Bot Does it Work?
Recap of the October Slack API Developer Meet-up!
Around 50 chat bot developers arrived at Slack HQ Tuesday night to hear talks on building apps with the Slack API. Most importantly, the BBQ was 💯 🐷
In terms of developer relations, I was really impressed by the consideration and support the staff put into the night. Meet-ups are typically a scramble with the speakers doing double duty as the logistics planners, and this was some next level organization and planning.
If you didn’t make it out to the SF event, here are some highlights from the talks and demos:
Mike Brevoort: Slapp & Beep Boop!
Mike Brevoort (CTO at Robots and Pencils) flew in from Denver and gave a great talk on testing and debugging Slack apps.
In depth and practical, he spent the time to walk us through how and what he tests for when building chat bots and slack apps.
The dev audience was able to see two of his teams products in action: Slapp and their hosted bot platform, Beep Boop.
Slapp 👋
A node.js module for Slack App integrations
Slapp is a node.js module for creating Slack integrations from simple slash commands to complex bots. From OAuth to dynamic chat messages, the module is a complete solution for getting bots out the door.
If you want to kick the tires, clone the repo at https://github.com/BeepBoopHQ/slapp
Beep Boop
The ridiculously simple developer platform for Slack integrations.
Beep boop (https://beepboophq.com) is the hosted developer platform focused on Slack applications.
Based on a Kubernetes container setup, it allows for continuous integrations running on Git repos.
Mike is a badass and overall I’m blown away by the talent over at robotsandpencils.com
Check out the actual talk below:
Dev Advocates: Roach and Ankur Oberoi
Jason (yes, the infamous Roach) and the newest Dev Advocate at Slack, Ankur Oberoi, covered some helpful tools for testing and debugging chat bots on Slack.
The main items they focused on: ngrok and Postman
Postman
Setting up proper API request/responses!
Pretty straight forward, Postman helps developers test and verify their API requests and structured responses.
This is very useful when confirming chat bots are properly formatting requests to Slack’s API.
Try it out at getpostman.com
Ngrok
Secure tunnels to localhost
Focuses on maintaining a stable domain for apps to interact with a localhost services. When developers are working from multiple locations this is especially helpful.
The paid version allows for custom domains and more features.
Learn more at: ngrok.com
The point of their session was that with these tools, you can test both the API calls and verify the interaction between services.
Since the Slack Events API is fairly new and still not baked into the Slack SDKs, these type of diagnostic tools are mega-helpful for bringing bots to life.
Slack and Tell (Demo): Flexbot.ai
Ramesh Padala did a solid demo on his new Slack app flexbot.ai
FlexBot — the personal wellness Slack Bot which provides contextual and timely reminders to keep people productive & healthy.
The bot provides water reminders, pre-meeting stress-release techniques, posture hacks and some amazing yoga content.
Get started at http://flexbot.ai/
Creating a Slack command bot from scratch with NodeJS
During the Slack and Tell sessions, Tomomi ✿ Imura presented some building blocks for grasping slash commands and building a bot on the Slack platform.
The slack bot enabled users to quickly look up http status codes, with the help of related Cat memes. 🐾
There’s a wide spread of tech backgrounds and training in the bot space; having clear proof of concepts make it attainable for a wider audience. Thanks for pulling it together!
Blog post for more details: https://medium.com/@girlie_mac/creating-a-slack-command-bot-from-scratch-with-node-js-distribute-it-25cf81f51040#.ftk1swhqj
Props
Big thanks to the Slack dev advocates and volunteer organizers (Kelly Walborn) for pulling this together! Shannon Burns did a great job fostering community among the bot makers — see you next time!
🤖 🎉
