zulip/api/README.md

Dependencies

The Zulip API Python bindings require the following Python libraries:

• simplejson
• requests (version >= 0.12.1)

Installing

This package uses distutils, so you can just run:

python setup.py install

Using the API

For now, the only fully supported API operation is sending a message. The other API queries work, but are under active development, so please make sure we know you're using them so that we can notify you as we make any changes to them.

The easiest way to use these API bindings is to base your tools off of the example tools under examples/ in this distribution.

If you place your API key in the config file ~/.zuliprc the Python API bindings will automatically read it in. The format of the config file is as follows:

[api]
key=<api key from the web interface>
email=<your email address>

Alternatively, you may explicitly use "--user" and "--api-key" in our examples, which is especially useful if you are running several bots which share a home directory.

You can obtain your Zulip API key, create bots, and manage bots all from your Zulip settings page.

A typical simple bot sending API messages will look as follows:

At the top of the file:

# Make sure the Zulip API distribution's root directory is in sys.path, then:
import zulip
zulip_client = zulip.Client(email="your-bot@example.com")

When you want to send a message:

message = {
  "type": "stream",
  "to": ["support"],
  "subject": "your subject",
  "content": "your content",
}
zulip_client.send_message(message)

Additional examples:

client.send_message({'type': 'stream', 'content': 'Zulip rules!',
                     'subject': 'feedback', 'to': ['support']})
client.send_message({'type': 'private', 'content': 'Zulip rules!',
                     'to': ['user1@example.com', 'user2@example.com']})

send_message() returns a dict guaranteed to contain the following keys: msg, result. For successful calls, result will be "success" and msg will be the empty string. On error, result will be "error" and msg will describe what went wrong.

Sending messages

You can use the included zulip-send script to send messages via the API directly from existing scripts.

zulip-send hamlet@example.com cordelia@example.com -m \
    "Conscience doth make cowards of us all."

Alternatively, if you don't want to use your ~/.zuliprc file:

zulip-send --user shakespeare-bot@example.com \
    --api-key a0b1c2d3e4f5a6b7c8d9e0f1a2b3c4d5 \
    hamlet@example.com cordelia@example.com -m \
    "Conscience doth make cowards of us all."