Section-1.md

Section 1: Steal Build This Bot

The files in this project are documented with docstrings and inline comments to help you learn what's happening at each step. We'll use python classes throughout this repository to model different aspects of bots and their interactions.

Here's a quick overview of the different files in this repository and how they fit together to give you guidance if you're recreating this project or building your own bot from scratch.

app.py

This file handles all incoming requests from Slack. In this file, we'll import the Bot class that we'll create in bot.py so we can instantiate bot objects to react to the incoming requests we receive.

First, you'll want to create a Flask app in app.py. Then you'll need to add a couple routes:

• "/install" a route that renders an installation page where users can add your Slack app to their team
• "/thanks" a route that renders a thank you page to let users know your app has been sucessfully installed.
  • This route will be the endpoint of the redirect URL where Slack will send a temporary authorization code. We'll exchange that code for an OAuth token here, using our bot object's auth method.
• "/listening" a route that listens for all incoming requests from Slack.
  • This route will be the endpoint of the request URL where Slack will send all Events your app is subscribed to.
  • This route will need to handle Slack's URL verification process.
  • We'll also want to use the Verification Token from our app's Basic Information page to verify that the requests sent to this route are from Slack and not someone devious.
  • This route will use an _event_handler helper function to help our bot object respond properly.

Above the routes you've added, you'll need to create the _event_handler helper function that your "/listening" route will use. This function should match the event type of the request coming from Slack to the way you'd like your bot to respond using different methods on the bot object.

bot.py

This file contains a python class for bot objects. The bot object is used in app.py to respond to requests from Slack. We can store attributes like the name and emoji we'd like to use for our bot. We can save all the information we'll need for authentication on our bot object, like the client_id, client_secret and verification_token from our app's Basic Information page.

We'll import the Message class that we'll create in the message.py file so we can instantiate message objects to help us keep track of the current state of the messages from our bot that users will be interacting with.

First, you'll want to create a Bot class with an __init__ function that will create the following attributes on each instance of a bot object that gets created:

• self.name the name of your bot that will be displayed to users interacting with it in Slack
• self.emoji the emoji that will be used as the profile picture for your bot
• self.oauth a python dictionary containing your app's "client_id", "client_secret" and the scope your app will need
  • To keep your app's information secret, after you've exported these secrets to your environment, you can access them here.
• self.verification the verification_token from your app's Basic Information page
  • Just like the secrets in self.oauth, after you've exported this to your environment you can access your verification token here.
• self.client a SlackClient object from python-slackclient which we'll use to connect to Slack's API's
  • Before the OAuth flow is completed when a user installs your app, you can connect to the SlackClient by passing an empty string. Once you've got the correct OAuth token, you'll need to reconnect to the client, passing the bot_access_token and updating this attribute.
• self.messages an empty python dictionary where we'll store message objects

After that you'll want to add some functionality to your bot with some Bot class methods. Here's a few methods you can start with:

• auth() a method that exchanges a temporary authorization code from Slack for an OAuth token
  • In this method you'll want to reconnect to the SlackClient and update the self.client attribute.
• open_dm() a method that opens up a new DM with a user

Here you can add Bot class methods for the different ways your bot should respond to events from Slack triggered by different ways users interact with your app. This project has a method for sending an onboarding_message() to teach users how to do different things in Slack when a user joins a team. As the user performs each of the onboarding tasks, we update the message using a Bot class method for each particular task.

message.py

This file contains a python class for creating message objects. Creating message objects allows us to store information about each onboarding message our bot sends out to various new users and more easily keep track of what tasks each user has completed. This project uses a JSON file with the contents of the onboarding message we're creating with this class.

Other Stuff

Templates Folder

You'll need some HTML for your installation and thank you pages. Once you create this folder, we'll use Jinja templates and add the Add to Slack button to allow users to install our app. The thank you page lets users know that the app has been sucessfully installed.

welcome.json

This is a JSON file of message attachments used in the message.py file to create the onboarding welcome message our bot will send to new users.

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