Simple robot for your slack integration
npm install slack-robotslack-robot initially built to respond message from user with an action, then replying
with a response. While hubot will do the job, it's too generic (no slack specific response like reaction, snippet, attachment, or listening to slack specific event). Using hubot also mean learning hubot specific command, using the right adapter, using the right slack-client, and patching them with slack specific event
While modularity is good, we're not sure about using multiple module with exponentially
larger bug possibility (and also broader learning material). Because we are using it in critical application, we need to make sure that the API surface is as little as possible, with near perfect test coverage. With that in mind, we built slack-robot by wrapping "official" slack-client into much easier to consume request-response handling library.
- Simple request response handler
- Normalize Slack API idiosyncrasy, for example:
- listening to reaction_added event using Slack RTM will trigger event handler regardless the message and channel (even the channel the bot not joined)
- uploading binary file is not possible (yet)
- Send response (or payload) without having to listen to event (external trigger)
- Access Control List (ACL) for each listener (only respond to message when fulfill specific criteria)
- Extensible via plug-ins (for example storing state)
- Complete control over what happen to your request and response
sh
$ npm install slack-robot --save
`Usage example
js
var SlackRobot = require('slack-robot');
var robot = new SlackRobot(process.env.SLACK_TOKEN);// will post 'world' text as bot when receiving 'hello' message
// in channel, group, or direct message
robot.listen('hello', function (req, res) {
return res.text('world').send();
});
// ignore message from '#general' channel, even if it matches the listener
robot.ignore('#general');
// start listening
robot.start();
`Parameterized message
You can also listen to dynamic message by using parameterized message (usually called named-regexp), by using
syntaxes. All parameters will be available via req.paramsjs
// send 'get sheep from 2010' to your bot
robot.listen('get :animal([a-z\-]+) from :year([0-9]{4})', function (req, res) {
console.log(req.params)
// { animal: 'sheep', year: 2010 }
});
`Pure regular expression (regexp) listener
Aside from named regexp (which uses a partial regexp match), you can use pure regexp inside your listener. The difference is, instead of getting an object in
, you get Array of regexp matches in req.matchesjs
// send 'get sheep from 2010' to your bot
robot.listen(/get ([a-z]+) from ([0-9]{4})/, function (req, res) {
// you don't have anything in named-param
console.log(req.params)
// {} // you use req.matches instead
console.log(req.matches);
// ['sheep', '2010']
})
`Request & response life cycle
In
, receiving and sending message is handled via Request and Response object. Every time your bot receive a chat, you get Request object with typedef below`
type Request = {
message: {
type: string
value: {}
},
from: {
id: string,
name: string
},
to: {
id: string,
type: string, (channel, group, or dm)
?name: string // missing if direct message
}
params: {},
matches: []
}
For example when you
send the bot @hola message get sheep from 2010 @hola in #general channel`js
robot.listen('get :animal([a-z\-]+) from :year([0-9]{4})', function (req, res) {
console.log(req);
// message: {
// type: 'text'
// value: {
// text: 'get sheep from 2010'
// mentioned: true
// }
// },
// from: {
// id: 'your_random_id',
// name: 'anonymous'
// },
// to: {
// id: 'random_channel_id',
// name: 'general',
// type: 'channel'
// },
// params: {
// animal: 'sheep',
// year: '2010',
// },
// matches: []
});
`To respond a message, use
object. You can respond multiple times as you want`js
robot.listen('yo', function (req, res) {
/**
* Send text
*
* @param {string} text
*/
res.text('what\'s up?'); /**
* Send attachment
*
* @param {string} text in attachment
* @param {Array
/**
* Send file
*
* @param {string} filename
* @param {string|ReadStream} content
* @see https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html
*/
res.upload('snippet.txt', fs.createReadStream('snippet.txt'));
/**
* Add reaction to the message
*
* @param {string} reaction emoji
*/
res.reaction(':+1:');
/**
* Always end your handler by returning res.send
*/
return res.send();
});
`Until you call
, your message will not be sent. By calling
res.send(), it will queue all your response and send them in series. To change this behavior,
change concurrency property from robot:`js
// send 3 response in parallel (this will affect all listener)
// keep in mind that enabling concurrency means the order of the
// message is not guaranteed
robot.set('concurrency', 3);
`Custom response target
To respond in another channel/im, simply pass the last argument to
,
.attachment() or .upload(), with channel name #general, group name private-group,
or user name @anon, or use an array of string to send multiple target:`js
robot.listen('yo', function (req, res) {
res.attachment('here', attachment, '#general');
res.upload('document.doc', file, '@anon');
res.text('done!', ['#general', '@anon']); // end your request
return res.send();
});
`NOTE: You cannot use custom response target when adding reaction
Asynchronous response
Sometimes you want to do some asynchronous task before sending back response, you can
use
which accept a callback that receive send function as argument.
To end your asynchronous task call send() without any argument. If your asynchronous
task failed, call send() with an error object:`js
robot.listen('deploy', function (req, res) {
res.text('executing scripts..'); return res.async(function (done) {
childProcess.exec('~/scripts/deploy --to production', function (err, stdout, stderr) {
if (err) {
// return to stop code for reaching res.text
return done(err);
}
// use res.text like usual
res.text('done, printing stdout:');
res.text(stdout);
done();
});
// call .send() to send all previous response declared in asynchronous task
}).send();
})
`**NOTE: Calling
after res.async() doesn't send all the response,
because res.send() is synchronous. Make sure you call res.async().send()
to send the response**If you already use Promise, you can return your Promise chain instead of using
js
// es2015 code style
robot.listen('deploy', (req, res) => {
return deployer().then(output => {
res.text('done, printing output:');
res.text(output);
return res.send();
})
});
`External trigger
You can also send message without having to listen to any message. This is particularly
useful when combined with another service that run asynchronously (for example error
reporting). Use
to get the response object
you usually use when responding message`js
var ws = require('websocket');ws.on('message', function (msg) {
// robot.to() is asynchronous by nature because we need to make sure
// the bot is connected before you able to send the message
// hence the use of the callback to get the response object
robot.to('@anon', function (res) {
res.text('Hi anon, you got a message');
res.text(msg);
return res.send();
});
});
`NOTE: .reaction() and .async() cannot be used here
Handling the unexpected
slack-robot will emit event if something happened. Below is the list of events
you can listen to:
-
, when you receive a message without user information
- own_message, when you receive a message from bot itself
- ignored_channel, when you receive a message in channel that you ignore via robot.ignore
- , when you receive a message without matching listener
- response_failed, when failed sending a single response
- request_handled, when a request has been handled
- error, general error, usually if your listener callback has uncaught exceptionTo listen specific event, use
robot.on(message, callback). Most event will receive
message object, except response_failed and error event which receive error object
instead, request_handled which receive request object, and message_no_sender which receive original message object from slack API`js
robot.on('error', function (err) {
// print to stderr, or sent to error reporting service
console.error(err);
});
`Help command generator
When you have many listener, you sometimes forget all your listeners. You can see it
by enabling help generator which will sent you all your listeners. Enable it using
MIT