Hangbot

A bot for Google Hangouts, developed for personal needs. The goal is not to have a bot that fits everyone's needs, but to learn more about Google Hangouts, as well as developing bots.

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/avik-das/hangbot.git
cd hangbot

# Set up your virtualenv if you wish
#
#   pyenv install 3.5.2
#   pyenv virtualenv 3.5.2 hangbot
#   pyenv local hangbot
#   echo '.python-version' >> .git/info/exclude

# Or otherwise sure you're using Python 3.5

pip install -r requirements.txt

export HANGBOT_EMAIL='...'
export HANGBOT_PASSWORD='...'

# Make sure you have some hangouts conversations with the above user as a
# member, as those are the conversations the bot will listen to.

python .

# Press ^C to exit

Now you can send commands to the bot. See the scripts directory for available commands.

Limitations

This project builds heavily off the excellent hangups library. As the README for that library explains, Google Hangouts uses a proprietary protocol, so any communication with Google Hangouts has been reversed engineered.

Contributing

Before contributing a change, please run the following checks:

# The first time, install the flake8 git commit hook. Only needs to be done
# once.
flake8 --install-hook=git

# The above will automatically run the linter whenever you commit, but it's a
# good habit to just run it across the whole project occasionally.
flake8

# There are no automated tests yet. Once they are set up, instructions will be
# added on how to run them.

Running as a Daemon

In production, we want to run the bot as a daemon, as well as automatically restart it if it crashes. This project uses the forever tool to achieve this. To run the bot in production:

# Make sure you have node.js installed. Any version that forever.js supports is
# sufficient.

npm install

# Start the daemon
npm start

# Now you can directly use "forever" to monitor and interact with the running
# process. Because the tool isn't installed globally, you'll have to point to
# the correct executable. Examples include:
./node_modules/.bin/forever          # see all the available options
./node_modules/.bin/forever list     # see all running daemons
./node_modules/.bin/forever logs .   # see the latest STDOUT output for the bot
./node_modules/.bin/forever stop .   # stop the bot