tightrope

Making Slackbots is hard! But wait: now it's easy.

Monthly Downloads: 9

Programming language: Haskell

License: MIT License

Tags: Web    

Latest version: v0.2.0.0

README

Tightrope is a library that makes writing Slash commands easier.

You give it a function that turns a Command into a Text response, and it gives you a WAI application that you can hand to Warp (or any other WAI-compatible server).

You need to give it an incoming-webhook token in order to use the say command. You can pass in the empty string if you're writing a bot that only needs to communicate with the user who initiated the slash command.

Usage

Here's a simple echo bot:

import Network.Tightrope
import Network.Wai.Handler.Warp (run)

main :: IO ()
main = do

  -- we don't want to keep our token in source control
  token <- readFile "token"

  -- change this, of course
  let url = "https://company.slack.com/services/hooks/incoming-webhook"
      port = 4000
      echobot = bot (Account token url) echo

  putStrLn $ "Running on port " ++ show port
  Warp.run port echobot

echo :: Command -> Slack Text
echo command = do
    -- `say` will broadcast a message to everyone in the specified room,
    -- or to one person (if you you `say` to a private room).

    -- You can `say` as many times as you want, to whatever room you like.

    -- But here we're just gonna post a message to the room the request
    -- came in on.

    let msg = message (Icon "ghost") "Echobot" (command ^. text)
    say msg (command ^. source)

    return "echoing, be patient..."

    -- Only the user who typed "/echo" will see the return value, and
    -- it isn't persistent. It'll disappear the next time they refresh
    -- slack. Use `say` if you want something persistent -- when given
    -- a `Private` Room, `say` will send messages from slackbot to the
    -- specified user.

Slack is a MonadIO, so you can use liftIO to do any IO operation in the process of handling the request.

What? A monad??

Yes. Here there be monads. Don't be afraid. Monads can smell fear. We can get through this together. I'm there for you.

But what if I don't know Haskell

That's okay! I don't either. But I've been having a lot of fun making bots anyway, and I've picked up a little bit of Haskell along the way.

Examples

• jpg2bot
• memebot

Contributors

• Ian Henry, author
• Hao Lian, inspiration and nemesis
• You??