This provides a slack bot starter with a web server.
The bot will be coded using botkit.
The webserver is using express with jade as the template engine and sass as the stylesheet engine.
The database is postgresql using knex for interfacing with postgresql.
Git clone this repo
$> git clone [email protected]:kyle-ilantzis/slack-bot-starter.git my-bot
Copy .env.example to the .env file
$> cp .env.example .env
Edit the .env file with your slack api token and postgres credentials
SLACK_API_TOKEN=xoxb-00000000000-ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP
POSTGRES_URL=postgres://username:password@host:port/mybot
Install dependencies
$> npm install
Create the database tables
$> npm install -g knex
$> knex migrate:latest
Run the app
$> node app.js
If all goes well you should have a bot connected to slack and a webserver running.
This starter kit starts with the most basic todo application. A webserver at localhost:3000 lists all todos and lets you add todos.
The bot can be told "todos" and then lists all todos on slack.
You are now ready to code your bot!
** Web server **
** Slack bot **
Below is a list of notes on how the starter kit was perceived.
To get you started faster some global variables are setup for you in app.js.
- ROOT: the path to the project directory.
- lodash: as _ in the code, everyone likes lodash.
- async: help you with your async needs.
- i18n: help you with your localization needs.
- database: to be used by both the bot and web server.
- bot: to be used by the web server.
You would use these variables as follows:
i18n.__('Todos');
...
database.getTodos( (err, todos ) => ... );
No require statements needed.
Knex describes migrations very well. That is how you should be creating your database schema.
To add functions on the 'database' global variable view the files database/database.js and database/todos/todos.js for how the approach is done.
Botkit describes very well here the api to program your bot.
To add functions on your bot view bot/bot.js and bot/todos/todos.js for how the approach is done.
The express web server is setup in web/web.js.
To add controllers to your web server see web/routes.js and web/controllers/todos.js
Views live in the web/views folder. Your controllers use req.render( 'path/to/view', ... ) with "path/to/view" being relative to the web/views folder.
When the server boots all sass stylesheets are compiled to css that our placed beside its sass equivalent.
For reasons of being consistent the starter kit favors fully qualified require statements. The ROOT global variable is used to define paths relative to the project's directory.
Requires then look like this:
require(ROOT + '/database/todos/todos.js')(knex,database);
MIT