From Zero to a WebEx Bot in (about) 15 Seconds with “Speedybot”
Video instructions:
We’re making this —
There’s a lot of details that can distract builders from the important parts of a conversational agent — namely the conversation! It should be easy to quickly add features, gather user feedback, integrate with 3rd-party services/tooling like Google DialogFlow or Amazon Lex, etc. “speedybot” can help with that and some other issues.
This guide assumes zero knowledge of WebEx and if followed in order will get you from zero to a functioning chatbot (which you can extend to your heart’s content) as quickly as possible.
Prerequisites
- Node & npm installed (minimum tested version is node 12) with git installed
- WebEx account
Step I: Get a bot token
Create a bot, save its token, you’ll need it in a second
- Create a new bot: https://developer.webex.com/my-apps/new/bot
- Provide a name, description & copy the token for use in the next step
Step II: Config + Boot bot
Scaffold app, pass in token & boot
You can use the tool below or just follow the steps here: https://github.com/valgaze/speedybot-starter/blob/master/quickstart.md
Open a terminal and use the speedyhelper tool to scaffold a project (you’ll be asked for your token from step 1)
npx speedyhelper setupIf all went all, after answering the questions and letting it pull in dependencies you should see something like this:
Step 3 III: Talk
Talk to your new friend
- Once the bot is booted from the previous step, find your bot from its bot username (name@webex.bot) and make sure all is working well by asking “healthcheck”
From here you can customize and integrate to your heart’s content
So it may not have taken precisely 15 seconds, but it’s a lot better than 15 minutes (and no nGrok!)
