incident-response-api

This is the backend for the incident response slack bot.

Based off work done in https://github.com/monzo/response

Local development

Slack app

You will need a slack app to be able to test this fully.

Create a new app to test and configure it with the values from https://github.com/hmcts/response/blob/master/docs/slack_app_create.md.

Back in your IDE, copy env-template file and rename it to .env and fill out the fields.

See https://github.com/hmcts/response/tree/master/demo#2-configure-the-demo-app for the values you need.

Running the app locally

Use docker compose up to build the required docker containers and test the application.

You can reach the UI via http://localhost:8000

Testing with the Slack app

In order to test your app works properly with Slack and its features like slash commands, it needs to be publicly reachable.

You can use a service called ngrok to make it reachable over the internet.

Be careful when using this as it will expose the application to anyone. Only do this when necessary and remember to run docker compose down when finished.

Sign up for an account with ngrok and obtain an API key and auth token.

Create a file called .ngrok.yml in your local repo with settings similar to this:

tunnels:
  httpbin:
    proto: http
    addr: response:8000
version: 2
authtoken: <YOUR AUTH TOKEN>
api_key: <YOUR API KEY>
web_addr: 0.0.0.0:8000
update: false
log: stdout

This file has been added to the gitignore so it does not get committed.

In the provided docker-compose.yaml file, there is an ngrok section that has been commented out.

Uncomment this section and run docker compose up.

Go to your ngrok account in your browser and click on Endpoints. There you will see your endpoint URL.

Update your slack app redirect URLs to your ngrok endpoint URL and add the appropriate endings e.g. /slack/slash_command, so you can test slash commands and other features.

Ngrok endpoint URLs will regenerate every time you recreate the ngrok container

Once you've done that, you can test the app from the slack desktop client using slash commands e.g. /incident.

Checking the logs

To see the logs of your docker container you can run:

docker logs response -f

This will output the logs to your terminal and follow them so you can see what's happening in real time.

Useful docker commands

docker compose up -d - builds the docker containers in the background so you don't have the logs taking over your terminal. docker compose up -d --build - rebuilds the containers from scratch so they pick up changes you've made to your application or dockerfiles.