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

@seanwalberg

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

@seanwalberg
We repeat
work.
Repeatedly.

@seanwalberg
We are
constantly
context
switching
when
solving
problems

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

@seanwalberg
What is chat?

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

@seanwalberg
Easily POSTable status messages

@seanwalberg
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

@seanwalberg

@seanwalberg
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

@seanwalberg
Pre-canned and custom scripts

@seanwalberg
Making JIRA suck less

@seanwalberg
Automate third party services

@seanwalberg
Troubleshoot in public

@seanwalberg
Long and complicated commands?

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

@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/

@seanwalberg
Like a mullet, it needs a mix

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

@seanwalberg

@seanwalberg
Reduce context switches

@seanwalberg
Teach them to fish.

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

@seanwalberg
Make it easy to change

@seanwalberg
Encourage acknowledgements

@seanwalberg
Behaviour modification

@seanwalberg
Peer Pressure As A Service

@seanwalberg
It can be a gateway drug

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