Slides from the October 21st, 2015 presentation of Hello PyBot at ATX Bot Talk.

1. Hello PyBot
Python Chat Bots for Slack
github.com/jeffk/PyBot
Jeff Kramer (@jeffk) ~ Data Infrastructure @ Vox Media

2. Users
Turing’s Magic Matrix
Pass
Bots
Pass
Fail

4. Incoming Web Hooks
• Unique URLs • JSON Payloads
• Custom Names/
Icons/Chan
curl -X POST —data-urlencode
'payload={
"text": "This is posted to <#general> and comes from *monkey-bot*.",
"channel": "#general",
"username": "monkey-bot",
"icon_emoji": “:monkey_face:"}'
https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00/B000/XXXXXX

5. Outgoing Web Hooks
• Channel and/or Trigger Words
(Public-Only)
• HTTP Post, JSON Resp
token=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
team_id=T0001
team_domain=example
channel_id=C2147483705
channel_name=test
timestamp=1355517523.000005
user_id=U2147483697
user_name=Steve
text=googlebot: What is the
air-speed velocity of an
unladen swallow?
trigger_word=googlebot:
{ "text": "African or European?” }

6. /Slash Commands
• POST or GET • Response Only Shown to User
It’s San Francisco, ergo cold.
token=gIkuvaNzQIHg97ATv
team_id=T0001
team_domain=example
channel_id=C2147483705
channel_name=test
user_id=U2147483697
user_name=Steve
command=/weather
text=94103

7. Other Integrations
• Web API (OAUTH, HTTP RPC)
• IRC/XMPP/LOL/SOB

8. The Slack Real Time Messaging API
• WebSockets
• Used by all Slack Clients
• Pushed All Messages in All Channels
• Commonly Used with Bot Users
• Can’t Join Channels
• Always Active (Unless set)

10. Real Time WebSockets Examples

11. Frameworks & Wrappers
• python-rtmbot
• Uses SlackClient
• Supports Plugins
• api.slack.com/community#python
• err - Popular Chatbot w/Slack
Support
• butterfield - Uses asyncio
• slacker - Popular Wrapper

12. Scaling Up
• Connection Proxies/Message
Brokers (Relax)
• Task Queues (Celery)
• Sharding

13. Resources
github.com/slackhq/python-slackclient & python-rtmbot
@jeffk
jeffkramer.com
github.com/jeffk/PyBot
dev4slack.xoxco.com
api.slack.com/web
api.slack.com/community