Browse Library
Sign In Start Free Trial
Close icon Search icon
Account
Browse Library Sign In Start Free Trial

Add to playlist

Create a Playlist

Modal Close icon
You need to login to use this feature.
  • Book Overview & Buying Building Slack Bots
  • Table Of Contents Toc
Building Slack Bots

Building Slack Bots

By : Paul Asjes
3 (2)
Buy this Book
close
close
Building Slack Bots

Building Slack Bots

3 (2)
By: Paul Asjes
Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Slack promises that its users will "be less busy." Slack bots interact with users in Slack chatrooms, providing useful immediate information, and automating work. This book gives you everything you need to build powerful and useful Slack bots. You’ll see how to hook into the Slack API to create software that can read and post to chatrooms, respond to commands and hints given in natural conversational language, and build fun and useful bots for your own place of work, both as a front end to your own service and to distribute and share as apps. You can even sell your bots and build a business as a Slack bot developer. Throughout the book, you’ll build useful and fun example applications that you can modify for your own situations. These range from simple, fun applications to liven up discussions to useful, data-driven apps to help you make decisions quickly and manage work.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)
close
close
close
Preface
Icon
Preface
Icon
What this book covers
Icon
What you need for this book
Icon
Who this book is for
Icon
Conventions
Icon
Reader feedback
Icon
Customer support
Lock Free Chapter
1
1. Getting Started with Slack
Icon
1. Getting Started with Slack
Icon
Introduction to Slack
Icon
Slack as a platform
Icon
The end goal
Icon
Summary
2
2. Your First Bot
chevron up
Icon
2. Your First Bot
Icon
Preparing your environment
Icon
Basic responses
Icon
Sending a direct message
Icon
Restricting access
Icon
Debugging a bot
Icon
Summary
3
3. Adding Complexity
Icon
3. Adding Complexity
Icon
Responding to keywords
Icon
Bot commands
Icon
External API integration
Icon
Summary
4
4. Using Data
Icon
4. Using Data
Icon
Introduction to Redis
Icon
Connecting to Redis
Icon
Saving and retrieving data
Icon
Best practices
Icon
Simple to-do example
Icon
Summary
5
5. Understanding and Responding to Natural Language
Icon
5. Understanding and Responding to Natural Language
Icon
A brief introduction to natural language
Icon
Fundamentals of NLP
Icon
Tokenizers
Icon
Stemmers
Icon
String distance
Icon
Inflection
Icon
Displaying data in a natural way
Icon
When to use NLP?
Icon
Mentions
Icon
Classifiers
Icon
Using trained classifiers
Icon
Natural language generation
Icon
When should we use natural language generation?
Icon
The uncanny valley
Icon
Summary
6
6. Webhooks and Slash Commands
Icon
6. Webhooks and Slash Commands
Icon
Webhooks
Icon
Slash commands
Icon
In-channel and ephemeral responses
Icon
Using webhooks and slash commands
Icon
Summary
7
7. Publishing Your App
Icon
7. Publishing Your App
Icon
The Slack app directory
Icon
Registering your app and obtaining tokens
Icon
Understanding the OAuth process
Icon
Scopes
Icon
Submitting your app to the app directory
Icon
Monetizing your bot
Icon
Summary
8
Index
Icon
Index

Chapter 2. Your First Bot

Readers will be amazed at how few lines of code are required to get a basic bot up and running in their Slack environment. This chapter will walk the reader through the basics of building a Slack bot:

  • Preparing your environment
  • Creating a Slack API token
  • Connecting your bot
  • Joining a channel
  • Sending a message to a channel
  • Basic responses
  • Sending a direct message
  • Restricting access
  • Debugging your bot

Although some of the concepts first outlined will be known to a more advanced reader, it is still recommended to read through the first few sections of this chapter to ensure that your environment is up and ready to go.

In this chapter, we will build a bot that performs the following actions:

  • Connects to your Slack team
  • Says hello to all the members of a channel after successfully connecting, distinguishing between real users and bot users
  • Responds to users saying hello
  • Sends a direct message to users who ask for the total amount of time the bot has been running (also known...
Visually different images
CONTINUE READING
83
Tech Concepts
36
Programming languages
73
Tech Tools
Icon Unlimited access to the largest independent learning library in tech of over 8,000 expert-authored tech books and videos.
Icon Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.
Icon 50+ new titles added per month and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.
Building Slack Bots
End of Section 2
Next Section
notes
bookmark Notes and Bookmarks search Search in title playlist Add to playlist download Download options
font-size Font size

Change the font size

margin-width Margin width

Change margin width

day-mode Day/Sepia/Night Modes

Change background colour

Close icon Search
Country selected
Close icon Your notes and bookmarks

Confirmation

Modal Close icon
claim successful
Order Page Read Now

Buy this book with your credits?

Modal Close icon
Are you sure you want to buy this book with one of your credits?
Close
YES, BUY

Submit Your Feedback

Modal Close icon
Modal Close icon
Modal Close icon