A Talented Slack Bot
Overview
A slack bot built in Node that connects the Slack Real Time Messaging API and opens a websocket connection to send and receive data from the Slack client. The bot listens for keywords in the chat to pull data from Google, New York Times, Uber, Quandl Financial, and OpenWeather APIs
Install
The following must be installed to run the project:
- Node
- NPM
And to install the application dependencies:
$ npm install
Run
To create a shiny new bot, sign in to Slack to go to https://my.slack.com/services/new/bot
Copy the bot API token as an environment variable. See the env.sample.js for a list of the environment variable names.
This new bot requires access to a variety of (free) services in order to respond to requests. Note that some APIs are dependent on one another. For instance the Google Geolocation API is used to fetch coordinates that then estimate Uber fares via the Uber API.
Google Geolocation API https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geolocation/intro Google Directions API https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/directions/ New York Times API https://developer.nytimes.com/ Uber API https://developer.uber.com/docs/riders/guides/authentication/introduction#api-token-authentication Quandl API https://www.quandl.com/docs/api OpenWeather https://openweathermap.org/appid
Note for Google there's a single API key. However, both APIs must be enabled from the Google Developer Console.
To start the app:
$ npm run start
With a successful connection, a message will print:
Connected to Slack!
Slack Commands
To execute commands, send messages in the general channel or message the bot directly
setstocks[TICKER1, TICKER2, TICKER3]
Bot saves a list of stocks by ticker symbol, where each stock is separated by a comma and the list is enclosed in brackets
getstocks
For saved stocks, bot fetches the current price, daily change in dollars / cents and daily change in percentage
setaddress [Start Address] [End Address]
Bot saves starting address and ending address both separated by a pair of brackets
getroute
For saved addresses, bot fetches current traffic conditions, calculates the fastest route and estimates the time it will take to reach the destination
getride
For saved addresses, bot requests travel info from Uber to give the time it will take for an UberPool and UberX to arrive at the start address and gives Uber's estimated cost to reach the end address
getnews
Bot retrieves the top 10 news stories featured on New York Times website according to views, shares, and recency
getweather
For saved start address, bot gives the 5 day forecast
Test
To run the test suite, type the command:
$ npm run test
Stack
| Back-End |
|---|
| Node.js |
| Express |
| Websockets |
| REST APIs |
License
MIT License