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Zulip bot system

Zulip's features can be extended by the means of bots and integrations.

Integrations are used to connect Zulip with different chat, scheduling and workflow software. If this is what you are looking for, please check out the integrations guide.
Bots, as a more general concept, intercept and react to messages. If this is what you are looking for, read on!

The purpose of this documentation is to provide you with information about Zulip's bot system.

On this page you'll find:

A step-by-step tutorial on how to run a bot.
A step-by-step tutorial on how to develop a bot.
A documentation of the bot API.
Common problems when developing/running bots and their solutions.

Contributions to this guide are very welcome, so if you run into any issues following these instructions or come up with any tips or tools that help with writing bots, please visit #integrations on the Zulip development community server, open an issue, or submit a pull request to share your ideas!

The bots system

Zulip's bot system resides in the python-zulip-api repository.

The structure of the bots ecosystem looks like the following:

zulip_bots
└───zulip_bots
    ├───bots
    │   ├───bot1
    │   └───bot2
    │       │
    │       ├───readme.md
    │       ├───bot2.py
    │       ├───bot2.config
    │       ├───libraries
    │       │   │
    │       │   └───lib1.py
    │       └───assets
    │           │
    │           └───pic.png
    ├─── lib.py
    ├─── test_lib.py
    ├─── run.py
    └─── provision.py

Each subdirectory in bots contains a bot. When developing bots, try to use the structure outlined above as an orientation.

How to run a bot

This guide will show you how to run a bot on a running Zulip server. It assumes you want to use one of the existing zulip_bots/bots bots in your Zulip organization. If you want to write a new one, you just need to write the <my-bot>.py script and put it into zulip_bots/bots/<my-bot> directory.

You need:

An account in an organization on a Zulip server (e.g. chat.zulip.org or yourSubdomain.zulipchat.com, or your own development server). Within that Zulip organization, users will be able to interact with your bot.
A computer where you're running the bot from.

Note: Please be considerate when testing experimental bots on public servers such as chat.zulip.org.

Install all requirements. You can either
- run pip install zulip_bots for a stable version, or
- clone the zulip_bots repository for the latest code. Install it with pip -e <path/to/zulip_bots>; you will be able to make changes to the code.
Register a new bot user on the Zulip server's web interface.
- Log in to the Zulip server.
- Navigate to Settings -> Active bots -> Add a new bot. Select Generic bot for bot type, fill out the form and click on Create bot.
- A new bot user should appear in the Active bots panel.
Download the bot's zuliprc configuration file to your computer.
- In the Active bots panel, click on the green icon to download its configuration file zuliprc (the structure of this file is explained here).
- Copy the file to a destination of your choice, e.g. to ~/zuliprc or ~/zuliprc-test.
Subscribe the bot to the streams that the bot needs to interact with.
- To subscribe your bot to streams, navigate to Manage Streams. Select a stream and add your bot by its email address (the address you assigned in step 2).
- Now, the bot can do its job on the streams you subscribed it to.
- (In future versions of the API, this step may not be required).
Run the bot.
- Run
```
zulip-run-bot <bot-name> --config-file ~/zuliprc`
```
  (using the path to the zuliprc file from step 3).
- Check the output of the command. It should start with the text the usage function returns, followed by logging output similar to this:
```
INFO:root:starting message handling...
INFO:requests.packages.urllib3.connectionpool:Starting new HTTP connection (1): localhost
```
- Congrats! Now, your bot should be ready to test on the streams you've subscribed it to.

Testing the helloworld bot

The helloworld bot is a simple bot that responds with a 'beep boop' when queried. It can be used as a template to build more complex bots.
Go to a stream your bot is subscribed to. Talk to the bot by typing @<your bot name> followed by some commands. If the bot is the helloworld bot, you should expect the bot to respond with "beep boop".

Zulip Botserver

The Zulip Botserver is for people who want to

run bots in production.
run multiple bots at once.

The Zulip Botserver is a Python (Flask) server that implements Zulip's Outgoing Webhooks API. You can of course write your own servers using the Outgoing Webhooks API, but the Botserver is designed to make it easy for a novice Python programmer to write a new bot and deploy it in production.

Installing the Zulip Botserver

Install the zulip_botserver PyPI package using pip:

pip install zulip_botserver

Running bots using the Zulip Botserver

Register new bot users on the Zulip server's web interface.
- Log in to the Zulip server.
- Navigate to Settings -> Active bots -> Add a new bot. Select Outgoing webhook for bot type, fill out the form and click on Create bot.
- A new bot user should appear in the Active bots panel.
Download the flaskbotrc from the your-bots settings page. It contains the configuration details for all the active outgoing webhook bots. It's structure is very similar to that of zuliprc.
Run the Zulip Botserver by passing the flaskbotrc to it. The command format is:
```
zulip-bot-server  --config-file <path_to_flaskbotrc> --hostname <address> --port <port>
```
If omitted, hostname defaults to 127.0.0.1 and port to 5002.
Now set up the outgoing webhook service which will interact with the server: Create an Outgoing webhook bot with its base url of the form:
```
http://<hostname>:<port>/bots/<bot_name>
```
bot_name refers to the name in the email address you specified for the bot. It can be obtained by removing -bot@*.* from the bot email: For example, the bot name of a bot with an email followup-bot@zulip.com is followup.

In the development environment, an outgoing webhook bot and corresponding service already exist, with the email outgoing-webhook@zulip.com. This can be used for interacting with flask server bots.
Congrats, everything is set up! Test your botserver like you would test a normal bot.

Please note that in order to @-mention trigger a bot on a stream, the bot and the outgoing webhook bot need to be subscribed to it.

Running Zulip Botserver with `supervisord`

supervisord is a popular tool for running services in production. It helps ensure the service starts on boot, manages log files, restarts the service if it crashes, etc. This section documents how to run the Zulip Botserver using supervisord.

Running the Zulip Botserver with supervisord works almost like running it manually.

Install supervisord via your package manager; e.g. on Debian/Ubuntu:
```
sudo apt-get install supervisor
```
Configure supervisord. supervisord stores its configuration in /etc/supervisor/conf.d.
- Do one of the following:
  - Download the sample config file and store it in /etc/supervisor/conf.d/zulip-botserver.conf.
  - Copy the following section into your existing supervisord config file.
```
[program:zulip-bot-server]
command=zulip-bot-server --config-file=<path/to/your/flaskbotrc> --hostname <address> --port <port>
startsecs=3
stdout_logfile=/var/log/zulip-botserver.log ; all output of your botserver will be logged here
redirect_stderr=true
```
- Edit the <> sections according to your preferences.
Update supervisord to read the configuration file:
```
supervisorctl reread
supervisorctl update
```
(or you can use /etc/init.d/supervisord restart, but this is less disruptive if you're using supervisord for other services as well).
Test if your setup is successful:
```
supervisorctl status
```
The output should include a line similar to this:

zulip-bot-server RUNNING pid 28154, uptime 0:00:27

The standard output of the bot server will be logged to the path in your supervisord configuration.

How to develop a bot

The tutorial below explains the structure of a bot <my-bot>.py, which is the only file you need to create for a new bot. You can use this as boilerplate code for developing your own bot.

Every bot is built upon this structure:

class MyBotHandler(object):
    '''
    A docstring documenting this bot.
    '''

    def usage(self):
        return '''Your description of the bot'''

    def handle_message(self, message, bot_handler, state_handler):
        # add your code here

handler_class = MyBotHandler

The class name (in this case MyBotHandler) can be defined by you and should match the name of your bot. To register your bot's class, adjust the last line handler_class = MyBotHandler to match your class name.
Every bot needs to implement the functions
- usage(self)
- handle_message(self, message, bot_handler)
These functions are documented in the next section.

Bot API

This section documents functions available to the bot and the structure of the bot's config file.

With this API, you can

intercept, view, and process messages sent by users on Zulip.
send out new messages as replies to the processed messages.

With this API, you cannot

modify an intercepted message (you have to send a new message).
send messages on behalf of or impersonate other users.
intercept private messages (except for PMs with the bot as an explicit recipient).

usage

usage(self)

is called to retrieve information about the bot.

Arguments

self - the instance the method is called on.

Return values

A string describing the bot's functionality

Example implementation

def usage(self):
    return '''
        This plugin will allow users to flag messages
        as being follow-up items.  Users should preface
        messages with "@followup".
        Before running this, make sure to create a stream
        called "followup" that your API user can send to.
        '''

handle_message

handle_message(self, message, bot_handler)

handles user message.

Arguments

self - the instance the method is called on.
message - a dictionary describing a Zulip message
bot_handler - used to interact with the server, e.g. to send a message
state_handler - used to save states/information of the bot beta
- use state_handler.set_state(state) to set a state (any object)
- use state_handler.get_state() to retrieve the state set; returns a NoneType object if no state is set

Return values

None.

Example implementation

 def handle_message(self, message, bot_handler, state_handler):
    original_content = message['content']
    original_sender = message['sender_email']
    new_content = original_content.replace('@followup',
                                           'from %s:' % (original_sender,))

    bot_handler.send_message(dict(
        type='stream',
        to='followup',
        subject=message['sender_email'],
        content=new_content,
    ))

bot_handler.send_message

bot_handler.send_message(message)

will send a message as the bot user. Generally, this is less convenient than send_reply, but it offers additional flexibility about where the message is sent to.

Arguments

message - a dictionary describing the message to be sent by the bot

Example implementation

bot_handler.send_message(dict(
    type='stream', # can be 'stream' or 'private'
    to=stream_name, # either the stream name or user's email
    subject=subject, # message subject
    content=message, # content of the sent message
))

bot_handler.send_reply

bot_handler.send_reply(message, response)

will reply to the triggering message to the same place the original message was sent to, with the content of the reply being response.

Arguments

message - Dictionary containing information on message to respond to (provided by handle_message).
response - Response message from the bot (string).

bot_handler.update_message

bot_handler.update_message(message)

will edit the content of a previously sent message.

Arguments

message - dictionary defining what message to edit and the new content

Example

From zulip_bots/bots/incrementor/incrementor.py:

bot_handler.update_message(dict(
    message_id=self.message_id, # id of message to be updated
    content=str(self.number), # string with which to update message with
))

Configuration file

[api]
key=<api-key>
email=<email>
site=<dev-url>

key - the API key you created for the bot; this is how Zulip knows the request is from an authorized user.
email - the email address of the bot, e.g. some-bot@zulip.com
site - your development environment URL; if you are working on a development environment hosted on your computer, use localhost:9991

Common problems

I modified my bot's code, yet the changes don't seem to have an effect.
- Ensure that you restarted the run.py script.
My bot won't start
- Ensure that your API config file is correct (download the config file from the server).
- Ensure that you bot script is located in zulip_bots/bots//
- Are you using your own Zulip development server? Ensure that you run your bot outside the Vagrant environment.
- Some bots require Python 3. Try switching to a Python 3 environment before running your bot.
My bot works only on some streams.
- Subscribe your bot to other streams, as described here.

Future direction

The long-term plan for this bot system is to allow the same ExternalBotHandler code to eventually be usable in several contexts:

Run directly using the Zulip call_on_each_message API, which is how the implementation above works. This is great for quick development with minimal setup.
Run in a simple Python webserver server, processing messages received from Zulip's outgoing webhooks integration.
For bots merged into the mainline Zulip codebase, enabled via a button in the Zulip web UI, with no code deployment effort required.

15 KiB Raw Blame History

Zulip bot system

The bots system

How to run a bot

Testing the helloworld bot

Zulip Botserver

Installing the Zulip Botserver

Running bots using the Zulip Botserver

Running Zulip Botserver with supervisord

How to develop a bot

Bot API

usage

Arguments

Return values

Example implementation

handle_message

Arguments

Return values

Example implementation

bot_handler.send_message

Arguments

Example implementation

bot_handler.send_reply

Arguments

bot_handler.update_message

Arguments

Example

Configuration file

Common problems

Future direction

15 KiB

Raw Blame History

Running Zulip Botserver with `supervisord`