Slack Ruby Bot Server
A library that enables you to write a complete Slack bot service with Slack button integration, in Ruby. If you are not familiar with Slack bots or Slack API concepts, you might want to watch this video. A good demo of a service built on top of this is missingkidsbot.org.
What is this?
A library that contains a Grape API serving a Slack Ruby Bot to multiple teams. This gem combines a web server, a RESTful API and multiple instances of slack-ruby-bot. It integrates with the Slack Platform API. Your customers can use a Slack button to install the bot.
Stable Release
You're reading the documentation for the stable release of slack-ruby-bot-server, v0.10.0. See UPGRADING when upgrading from an older version.
Try Me
A demo version of the sample app with mongoid is running on Heroku at slack-ruby-bot-server.herokuapp.com. Use the Add to Slack button. The bot will join your team as @slackbotserver.
Once a bot is registered, you can invite to a channel with /invite @slackbotserver
interact with it. DM "hi" to it, or say "@slackbotserver hi".
Run Your Own
You can use one of the sample applications to bootstrap your project and start adding slack command handlers on top of this code. A database is required to store teams.
MongoDB
Use MongoDB with Mongoid as ODM. Configure the database connection in mongoid.yml
. Add the mongoid
gem in your Gemfile.
gem 'mongoid'
gem 'kaminari-mongoid'
gem 'mongoid-scroll'
gem 'slack-ruby-bot-server'
See the sample app using Mongoid for more information.
ActiveRecord
Use ActiveRecord with, for example, PostgreSQL via pg. Configure the database connection in postgresql.yml
. Add the activerecord
, pg
, otr-activerecord
and cursor_pagination
gems to your Gemfile.
gem 'pg'
gem 'activerecord', require: 'active_record'
gem 'slack-ruby-bot-server'
gem 'otr-activerecord'
gem 'cursor_pagination'
See the sample app using ActiveRecord for more information.
Usage
Create a New Application on Slack.
Follow the instructions, note the app's client ID and secret, give the bot a default name, etc. The redirect URL should be the location of your app, for testing purposes use http://localhost:9292
. Edit your .env
file and add SLACK_CLIENT_ID=...
and SLACK_CLIENT_SECRET=...
in it. Run bundle install
and foreman start
. Navigate to localhost:9292. Register using the Slack button.
If you deploy to Heroku set SLACK_CLIENT_ID
and SLACK_CLIENT_SECRET
via heroku config:add SLACK_CLIENT_ID=... SLACK_CLIENT_SECRET=...
.
API
This library implements an app, SlackRubyBotServer::App, a service manager, SlackRubyBotServer::Service that creates multiple instances of a bot server class, SlackRubyBotServer::Server, one per team.
App
The app instance checks for a working database connection, ensures indexes, performs migrations, sets up bot aliases and log levels. You can introduce custom behavior into the app lifecycle by subclassing SlackRubyBotServer::App
and creating an instance of the child class in config.ru
.
class MyApp < SlackRubyBotServer::App
def prepare!
super
deactivate_sleepy_teams!
end
private
def deactivate_sleepy_teams!
Team.active.each do |team|
next unless team.sleepy?
team.deactivate!
end
end
end
MyApp.instance.prepare!
Service Manager
You can introduce custom behavior into the service lifecycle via callbacks. This can be useful when new team has been registered via the API or a team has been deactivated from Slack.
instance = SlackRubyBotServer::Service.instance
instance.on :created do |team, error, |
# a new team has been registered
end
instance.on :deactivated do |team, error, |
# an existing team has been deactivated in Slack
end
instance.on :error do |team, error, |
# an error has occurred
end
The following callbacks are supported. All callbacks receive a team
, except error
, which receives a StandardError
object.
callback | description |
---|---|
error | an error has occurred |
creating | a new team is being registered |
created | a new team has been registered |
booting | the service is starting and is connecting a team to Slack |
booted | the service is starting and has connected a team to Slack |
stopping | the service is about to disconnect a team from Slack |
stopped | the service has disconnected a team from Slack |
starting | the service is (re)connecting a team to Slack |
started | the service has (re)connected a team to Slack |
deactivating | a team is being deactivated |
deactivated | a team has been deactivated |
The Add to Slack button also allows for an optional state
parameter that will be returned on completion of the request. The creating
and created
callbacks include an options hash where this value can be accessed (to check for forgery attacks for instance).
auth = OpenSSL::HMAC.hexdigest("SHA256", "key", "data")
<a href="https://slack.com/oauth/authorize?scope=bot&client_id=<%= ENV['SLACK_CLIENT_ID'] %>&state=#{auth)"> ... </a>
instance = SlackRubyBotServer::Service.instance
instance.on :creating do |team, error, |
raise "Unauthorized response" unless [:state] == auth
end
A number of extensions use service manager callbacks to implement useful functionality.
- slack-ruby-bot-server-mailchimp: Subscribes new bot users to a Mailchimp mailing list.
Server Class
You can override the server class to handle additional events, and configure the service to use it.
class MyServer < SlackRubyBotServer::Server
on :hello do |client, data|
# connected to Slack
end
on :channel_joined do |client, data|
# the bot joined a channel in data.channel['id']
end
end
SlackRubyBotServer.configure do |config|
config.server_class = MyServer
end
Service Class
You can override the service class to handle additional methods.
class MyService < SlackRubyBotServer::Service
def url
'https://www.example.com'
end
end
SlackRubyBotServer.configure do |config|
config.service_class = MyService
end
SlackRubyBotServer::Service.instance # MyService
SlackRubyBotServer::Service.instance.url # https://www.example.com
Access Tokens
By default the implementation of Team stores a bot_access_token
as token
that grants a certain amount of privileges to the bot user as described in Slack OAuth Docs along with activated_user_access_token
that represents the token of the installing user. You may not want a bot user at all, or may require different auth scopes, such as users.profile:read
to access user profile information via Slack::Web::Client#users_profile_get
. To change required scopes make the following changes.
1) Configure your app to require additional scopes in Slack API under OAuth, Permissions
2) Change the Add to Slack buttons to require the additional scope, eg. https://slack.com/oauth/authorize?scope=bot,users.profile:read&client_id=...
3) The access token with the requested scopes will be stored as activated_user_access_token
.
You can see a sample implementation in slack-sup#3a497b.
Examples Using Slack Ruby Bot Server
- slack-sup, free service at sup.playplay.io
- slack-gamebot, free service at www.playplay.io
- slack-market, free service at market.playplay.io
- slack-shellbot, free service at shell.playplay.io
- slack-api-explorer, free service at api-explorer.playplay.io
- slack-strava, free service at slava.playplay.io
- slack-arena, free service at arena.playplay.io
Copyright & License
Copyright Daniel Doubrovkine and Contributors, 2015-2018