botkit-sms

botkit-sms allows you to create conversational SMS apps ("bots") via Twilio's Programmable SMS API using Botkit's familiar interface.

It takes advantage of Botkit's core functionality thus allowing you to create complex conversational flows via a simple interface. It also allows you to use custom storage methods/systems to enable data persistence across sessions.

What is Botkit?

Here's an excerpt of Botkit's readme.md file:

[Botkit] provides a semantic interface to sending and receiving messages so that developers can focus on creating novel applications and experiences instead of dealing with API endpoints.

Use Case

You can use botkit-sms to build SMS bots with moderately-complex conversational flows.

Installation

$ npm install --save botkit-sms

Usage

Note: This document assumes that you are familiarized with Botkit and Twilio's Programmable SMS API

To connect your bot to Twilio you must point a Messaging webhook to http://your_host/sms/receive, after doing so, every Twilio message will be sent to that address.

Then you need to write your bot. First, create a TwilioSMSBot instance and pass an object with your configuration properties:

account_sid: found in your Twilio Console Dashboard
auth_token: found in your Twilio Console Dashboard
twilio_number: your app's phone number, found in your Phone Numbers Dashboard The phone number format must be: +15551235555

const TwilioSMSBot = require('botkit-sms')
const controller = TwilioSMSBot({
  account_sid: process.env.TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID,
  auth_token: process.env.TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN,
  twilio_number: process.env.TWILIO_NUMBER
})

spawn() your bot instance:

let bot = controller.spawn({})

Then you need to set up your Web server and create the webhook endpoints so your app can receive Twilio's messages:

controller.setupWebserver(process.env.PORT, function (err, webserver) {
  controller.createWebhookEndpoints(controller.webserver, bot, function () {
    console.log('TwilioSMSBot is online!')
  })
})

And finally, you can setup listeners for specific messages, like you would in any other botkit bot:

controller.hears(['hi', 'hello'], 'message_received', (bot, message) => {
  bot.startConversation(message, (err, convo) => {
    convo.say('Hi, I am Oliver, an SMS bot! :D')
    convo.ask('What is your name?', (res, convo) => {
      convo.say(`Nice to meet you, ${res.text}!`)
      convo.next()
    })
  })
})

controller.hears('.*', 'message_received', (bot, message) => {
  bot.reply(message, 'huh?')
})

See full example in the examples directory of this repo.

Reference

Please see botkit's guide and reference document here.

Contributing

Bug Reports & Feature Requests

Something does not work as expected or perhaps you think this module needs a feature? Please open an issue using GitHub's issue tracker. Please be as specific and straightforward as possible.

Developing

Pull Requests (PRs) are welcome. Make sure you follow the same basic stylistic conventions as the original code (i.e. "JavaScript standard code style"). Your changes must be concise and focus on solving a single problem.

License

The MIT License (MIT)

matthewrossanderson/botkit-sms