Ebony Framework

An easy to use, module-based, multi-channel chatbot framework.

Features

Separation in independent, portable, easy to customize modules
Separate adapters for interfacing with communication channels (For now Facebook Messenger and Viber)
Route-based rules, with middlewares

Getting Started

For now, there is no detailed documentation for Ebony Framework. You can easily create an ebony-based Facebook Messenger Bot with the Messenger Bot Template. If you have any questions and/or suggestions feel free to open an issue, or create a pull request.

Install Ebony Framework

$ yarn add @ebenos/framework

Install an adapter

For Messenger:

$ yarn add @ebenos/messenger-adapter

For Viber:

$ yarn add @ebenos/viber-adapter

Initialize the bot

import { Bot } from '@ebenos/framework';

// Import the adapter (for example the Messenger Adapter) as well as the user model
import { MessengerAdapter, MessengerUser } from '@ebenos/messenger-adapter';

// ... Here import the modules you'll use...
import botModule from './modules/botModule';

// Here you initialize the adapter.
// For example the Messenger Adapter:
const adapter =
    new MessengerAdapter({
        pageId: /* Your FB Page ID */,
        pageToken: /* Your Page Token */ ,
        appSecret: /* Your App Secret */,
        webhookKey: /* Your Webhook Key */
    });

export const bot = new Bot<MessengerUser>(adapter, {
    mongodbUri: /* Your MongoDB Connection URI */
});

bot.addModule(botModule);

bot.start({
    port: 3000 // You can substitute "3000" with the PORT of your choice.
});

Channel Adapters

For now, only a Messenger Platform adapter is publicly available. If you want to use the Ebony Framework for another channel, open an issue to discuss the development of a new adapter.

Modules

A module is a portable collection of actions, rules and middlewares that is imported into the chatbot on runtime.

See Modules.md for more information.

Action

An action is a function that when it's triggered, it sends a message to the user.

Rules

There are multiple types of rules inside a module. A rule could be context based (ContextRouter), postback based (PostbackRouter) or even a regex (TextMatcher). These rules, work similarly to routes in a web framework. They point to an action that is triggered when the rule is satisfied.

Middlewares

Middlewares run before (preMiddlewares) and after (postMiddlewares) an action is triggered.

Development/Contributing

How to set up the ebony repository:

yarn install
yarn lerna bootstrap
yarn lerna run build

Linting

yarn lerna run lint

Next Steps

Add tests
Decouple database logic from framework (add support for multiple databases)
Use redis for user context storing
Create Slack adapter

Authors

Christos Panagiotakopoulos - Initial Work & Project Leader
Dimitrios Gkegkas - Maintainer & Contributor
George Rouvalis - Initial Work on Viber integration

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

GeoRouv/ebony