An introduction to chatbots, chatbots and chatops. Learn the basics of Slack application development including features like incoming webhooks, bot users, events API, slash commands, Slack APIs, RTM API, and some best practices.

1. App Development
February 23, 2018 | Serhat Can
@srhtcn

2. About me
MSc at METU
Previously Software Engineer
Technical Evangelist at OpsGenie

3. About
● Searchable Log of All Conversations and Knowledge
● The fastest growing SaaS company. Of all time.
● Over 6 million apps installed (2016 number)

4. More than 6 million daily active users

9. Twitter Chatbot

10. ChatOps is
“Placing tools directly in the middle of
the conversation”
— Jesse Newland, GitHub

11. Outline
● Terminology
● App Development Lifecycle
● Features
● Slack APIs
● Designing Slack Messages
● Tips and Tricks

12. Terminology (for Slack beginners)
Workspace
(Team)
channel
channel
channel
Workspace
(Team)
channel
channel

13. Message
Terminology

14. Development Terminology
Custom Integrations (Old)
Incoming Webhooks
Slash Commands
Bot Users
Outgoing Webhooks
Web API
Legacy Tokens

15. Development Terminology
Custom Integrations (Old)
Incoming Webhooks
Slash Commands
Bot Users
Outgoing Webhooks
Web API
Legacy Tokens
Internal integrations (apps)
Published apps
Apps

16. Internal integrations
Only for your team
Easy installation
SSL is recommended but not required
Published Apps
For you and other workspaces
Implement OAuth flow
SSL is required

17. App Development
Lifecycle

18. App Development Lifecycle
Void of features, uninstalled
Has features but can only be installed by your workplace
Open to installation by other workspaces
Submitted to the Slack app directory

20. Creating Apps

21. Slack App Features

22. Incoming Webhooks

23. Incoming Webhooks
The simplest way to send messages into Slack.
HTTP requests with a JSON payload
curl -X POST -H 'Content-type: application/json'
--data '{"text":"This is a line of text.nAnd this is another one."}'
https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00000000/B00000000/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX

24. Incoming Webhooks
Slack's standard message markup *bold* _italic_
Message attachments to display richly-formatted message
blocks

25. Interactive Messages

26. Interactive Messages
Simplify complex workflows and empower users to
take decisive action

27. Interactive Messages
■ Buttons
■ Menus
■ Dialogs

28. Interactive Messages - Buttons
Simplify complex workflows and empower users
to take decisive action

29. Interactive Messages - Menus
Choose from a series of
options
Easy to fill up Slack users
and channels

30. Interactive Messages - Dialogs
Triggered by clicking on buttons,
selecting from menus, or invoking
slash commands.
Dialogs contain a variety of guided
input types.

31. Interactive Messages
Configure a Request URL for your application

32. Interactive Messages
You send JSON payload as always
Your registered action URL would receive a payload of JSON
You receive:
● the callback_id you set when creating the message
● the specific name of the clicked button
● and the corresponding value of that same clicked button

33. Slash Commands

34. Slash Commands
Interact with your app directly from Slack.

35. Slash Commands
Built-in Commands
/topic
/remind
/search
/invite
Slack App Commands
/genie
/giphy
/deploy
/hangout

36. Slash Commands
Your registered URL receives the response via HTTP POST.

37. Responding to a command
You’ve got 3000 milliseconds to respond
If it takes more than 3000 ms, return 200 OK
Send your message ASYNC

38. Bots (Bot Users)

39. Bot Users
Conversationally interact with external services or your custom
code by building bot users

40. Bot Users
● Profile photo, name, bio
● Post message, upload file
● Invite and kick
Difference:
● They can’t login

41. Bot Users
Slack app bot users Custom bot users

42. Bot Users
Bot users interact with people two ways:
● Real Time Messaging API (RTM)
○ Websocket connection
○ Receive all messages and activity
● Events API

43. Event Subscriptions (Events API)

44. Event Subscriptions (Events API)
Don’t call us, we’ll call you

45. Event Subscriptions (Events API)
Subscribe to the event types you need

46. Event Subscriptions (Events API)
Governed by OAuth permission scopes
If you have files:read scope
You can choose to subscribe to any or none of the
file-related events like file_created and file_deleted

48. RTM
Websocket connection
(Stay connected)
Subscribe to everything
Events API
Call you with HTTPS requests
(Push subscription)
Subscribe to only what you want
If the RTM API is a fire hose,
the Events API is a watering can — easy to wield and useful

49. Permissions

50. Permissions
OAuth permission scopes
● Web API,
● Events API,
● RTM API,
● Slash Commands,
● Incoming Webhooks

51. Scope Actions
There are currently only three classes of action:
● read: Reading the full information about a single resource.
● write: Modifying the resource in any way e.g. creating, editing, or
deleting.
● history: Accessing the message archive of channels, DMs, or private
channels.

52. Installing Apps

53. Installing Apps

54. Installing Apps

56. Slack API
● Authenticate with OAuth 2.0
● HTTPS is a must
● JSON response with failure info in the response body
● HTTP RPC-style methods https://slack.com/api/METHOD

57. Slack API
● Web API
● Events API
● Real Time Messaging API
● New Conversations API (Part of Web API)
Public channels, private channels, DMs... They are all conversations!
● SCIM API
The Slack SCIM API is used by SSO partners to help provision and manage user accounts and groups.
Only available on the Plus plan and Slack Enterprise Grid

58. Web API Object Types

59. Meet the tokens

60. Messages

61. How to Send Messages
● Incoming Webhooks
● Web API
● RTM API
● Responding to slash commands
● Responding to message button actions

62. Guidelines for Building Messages
● Stay in the flow
● Keep formatting simple
● Don’t get too attached

63. In Channel means everyone in the channel can see the response
“In Channel” vs “Ephemeral” responses
Ephemeral means only the command issuer can see the response

64. Delayed and Multiple Responses
You have to respond to a command or button
within 3000 milliseconds
If your execution takes more time;
● Return the 200 OK response immediately
● Use response_url or Web API to send your response

65. Advanced
Message
Formatting
https://api.slack.com/docs/messages/builder

66. Tips and Tricks

67. Slack Developer Kits
● Slack Developer Kit for Node
● Slack Developer Kit for Python
● Slack Developer Kit for Hubot
● Botkit
● Microsoft Bot Framework
● Widely-used open source libraries available for a lot of languages

68. NLP for Bots
Bot users should try to understand what you are saying.
You can use services like;
● Amazon Lex
● Api.ai
● Wit.ai

69. And...
● Read the “Best Practices” pages
● Understand your audience
● Check App blueprints to start quickly
● Talk with Slack DevRel Team if necessary
● Follow Slack’s Roadmap

70. Work with us
engineering.opsgenie.com
opsgenie.com/careers

71. @srhtcn
@serhatcan
@serhatcan

72. Demo
Services
AWS Lambda
APIs Involved
Events API
OpsGenie API
Web API
https://github.com/serhatcan/serverless-opsgenie-slack-alert-unfurling

73. https://github.com/serhatcan/serverless-opsgenie-slack-alert-unfurling