sms-music-swap

A simple sms bot for mediating music recs between strangers

About

This is a flask app that handles text message exchanges with strangers. It uses Twilio to send/receive SMS.

In a nutshell, the app:

texts a prompt (currently the topic is music recs, but this can be adapted to fit other topics)
stores responses
texts randomly selected responses from strangers
texts notifications when responses have been seen
allows admins to moderate responses

UPDATE: the music swap bot used to live at 1-415-851-7927, but unfortunately it needs to be shut down due to high usage (i.e. high costs). If you're interested in reviving it, reach out: cathyd125 at gmail

Setup

1. Make sure you have OS level dependencies

Python 3
MySQL

2. Clone this repo

git clone https://github.com/buzzfeed-openlab/sms-music-swap.git
cd sms-music-swap

3. Install required python libraries

Optional but recommended: make a virtual environment using virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper.

Notes:

Instructions for setting up virtualenv here.
mkvirtualenv sms will automatically activate the sms environment; to activate it in the future, just use workon sms
if the virtualenv you make isn't python 3 (check w/ python --version), use mkvirtualenv sms -p /path/to/your/python3 (find your python3 path with which python3)

mkvirtualenv sms

Install requirements:

pip install -r requirements.txt

4. create a MySQL database

mysql -u root

& then

create database sms;

If you're working locally, you're good to go. But if you're going to host this on a shared server you probably want to create a new user for this database instead of using root.

5. Configure the app

There are two ways to do this: (a) making a config file or (b) setting environment variables.

You will need a twilio account & number to configure the app. (INSTRUCTIONS TO COME)

Option A
Copy the example secret config file

cp sms_swap/config_vars_secret.py.example sms_swap/config_vars_secret.py

Then, edit sms_swap/config_vars_secret.py.

Option B
see sms_swap/config_vars_secret.py.example for the names of environment variables to set & descriptions of what the values should look like.

6. Run the app locally

python application.py

7. Initialize the database

Visit the /initialize route (e.g. localhost:5000/intialize) & enter admin credentials (ADMIN_USER & ADMIN_PASS). This will create the table for storing responses.