wtf-bot

A Flask application that powers the /wtf Slack command. Inspired by a previous incarnation of similar functionality. Relies on the VA acronym list.

Install to slack

If using a VA slack instance, you can configure an instance of this bot into your slack. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Create a new slack app in your workspace, using the manifest. Instructions to do this are here.
2. Get the app approved by your administrators and add it to your workspace.
3. Submit a ticket to the DOTS service desk and provide the 'Verification Token' available in the Basic Information / App Config section of your bot config. This token is used to validate your requests to the wtf-bot.
4. DOTS will inform you when the token has been added, and will provide you with the URL to the wtf-bot service. This URL should be added to your app config to replace the http://replace.me.com/slack link.
5. Test out the wtf-bot in your slack with /wtf VA - it should work!

Local development

Clone this repo.

$ git clone https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/wtf-bot.git
$ cd /path/to/wtf-bot/

Create and configure virtual environment.

Make sure you have the correct version of python. Pyenv manages python versions.

1. pyenv install 3.8.12 (use version in .python-version)
2. Make sure to configure your shell's environment for pyenv following instructions in step 2 here.
3. Once this is done, start a new shell and run pyenv version and python --version in the terminal from the root directory of the project, both should read 3.8.12

*nix

 $ make python-install
 $ source ENV/bin/activate

Windows

> python3 -m venv ENV
> ENV\Scripts\activate
> pip3 install -r requirements.txt dev-requirements.txt

Run tests

$ make test

Run the server locally

Set up environment variables

*nix

$ export FLASK_APP=/path/to/wtf-bot/wtf.py
$ export FLASK_DEBUG=1
$ export SLACK_TOKENS={comma separated tokens to be defined by you}
$ export DATA_URL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/acronyms/master/acronyms.csv

Windows

> set FLASK_APP=/path/to/wtf-bot/wtf.py
> set FLASK_DEBUG=1
> set SLACK_TOKENS={comma separated tokens to be defined by you}
> set DATA_URL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/acronyms/master/acronyms.csv

Start the local server

$ flask run

Query the /slack endpoint

$ curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:5000/slack -d "text=aaa&token={to be defined by you}"

Bugs, feature requests, or contributions

Open an Issue. Pull requests welcome.