Slides for the talk I gave at DevOpsDays Toronto on May 27, 2016. This talk is about the use of ChatOps at the NFL and the Hubot based robot we've been working on.

1. @seanwalberg
Water Boy, my robotic coworker
Sean Walberg <sean@ertw.com>
Infrastructure guy
National Football League

2. @seanwalberg

3. @seanwalberg https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizbrooks/2502106228/
Conversations
happen in private

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We repeat
work.
Repeatedly.

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We are
constantly
context
switching
when
solving
problems

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Enter Chat
A transparent,
distributed, shared CLI
for your
infrastructure.

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What is chat?

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Good chat services have APIs
• Post messages to a channel
• Receive messages, both direct and group
• Send rich attachments
(or open protocols)

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Easily POSTable status messages

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Context and conversation
Here we are, talking about code, and then we learn:
Now we’re talking about fixing code
And now we all know it’s fixed

11. @seanwalberg

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General usage
robot.respond /git er done/i, (msg) ->
msg.send "Will do #{msg.message.user.name}!”
robot.hear /demo on (.*) is at (.*)/i, (msg) ->
# Access the message itself
robot.router.post "/hubot/say", (req, res) ->
# respond to POST from the outside
httprequest = msg.http(…) # call out

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Pre-canned and custom scripts

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Making JIRA suck less

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Automate third party services

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Troubleshoot in public

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Long and complicated commands?

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You know what didn’t work?
robot.respond /deploy consulator/i, (msg) ->
robot.respond /deploy node (.*) to (.*)/i, (msg) ->
Factoids
Tracking team demos

19. @seanwalberg
What if I
make a bot
and nobody
uses it?
(or how do I
get people
to use it?)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vr/2364953428/

20. @seanwalberg
Like a mullet, it needs a mix

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A good bot…
• Helps people do their work
• Is fun to use
• Is easy to change
• Contributes to your company culture

22. @seanwalberg

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Reduce context switches

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Teach them to fish.

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Let people express themselves
Giphy got annoying quickly. “image me” is banned. We prefer “meme me”.
In-jokes are fun to add.

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Make it easy to change

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Encourage acknowledgements

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Behaviour modification

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Peer Pressure As A Service

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It can be a gateway drug

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If you want me to stop talking, you’d
better ask some questions.
sean@ertw.com
@seanwalberg