jonfairbanks/halbert repository overview

⁠Halbert

A production ready Slackbot written with Hubot

⁠Prerequisites

A Slackbot token pre-configured for your team is required. Checkout the Slack docs for more information⁠.

⁠Start the Container Headless

If you do not want to connect to the container and just want to run it, use daemon mode with -d:

(sudo) docker run -d \
-e HUBOT_SLACK_TOKEN=<token> \
-v /logs:/app/logs \
--name halbert jonfairbanks/halbert

The logs/ volume mount can be moved as you see fit, but is required if you want hubot-chatlog⁠ files to persist container updates, reboots, etc.

⁠Pre-installed hubot packages

• hubot-diagnostics⁠
• hubot-help⁠
• hubot-maps⁠
• hubot-redis-brain⁠
• hubot-uptime⁠
• hubot-chatlog⁠
• hubot-xkcd⁠
• hubot-base64⁠
• hubot-sha1⁠
• Other experimental scripts can be found in the scripts/ directory.

⁠Start and Connect to the Container for Debugging

1. To download, launch and connect to the container: (sudo) docker run -it --name halbert jonfairbanks/halbert '/bin/bash'
2. Finally, launch the bot within the container: HUBOT_SLACK_TOKEN=<token> ./bin/hubot

⁠Viewing Log Output

The output of hubot startup and any console.log() within your scripts is directed to container logs and can be viewed within Docker.

(sudo) docker logs <container name>

Unless specifically disabled, halbert also maintains a chatlog for each channel it is invited to. These logs are stored in the path specified on container launch and can also be viewed within Slack using the chatlog command.

⁠Helpful Docker Commands for Removing/Updating Halbert

• To stop the container: (sudo) docker stop halbert
• To remove the container: (sudo) docker rm halbert
• To list containers: (sudo) docker ps -a
• To list images: (sudo) docker images
• To remove the old image: (sudo) docker rmi jonfairbanks/halbert

⁠Environment Variables

Additional ENV variables can be passed when starting Docker with the -e flag and then accessed within scripts as process.env.ENV_VARIABLE_NAME

-e ENV_VARIABLE_NAME='My Variable'

⁠Exposing Directories

Directories within the Docker container can be exposed to the local machine with the -v flag with parameter syntax of :.

⁠Expose Logs Directory

-v /app/logs:/hubot/logs

⁠Expose Scripts Directory

-v /app/scripts:/hubot/scripts

Note: exposing the entire /app directory may cause a startup failure

⁠Exposing Ports

Docker ports can be exposed to extend functionality, such as with webhooks, using the -p flag.

-p 8080:8080 (<External Port>:<Internal Docker Port>)

⁠Adding new packages to Hubot

docker exec -it halbert npm install hubot-packagename --save docker restart halbert

Be sure to replace 'hubot-packagename' with the desired package you wish to install. When NPM packages are installed with the name that begins with hubot-*, they will be automatically added to the external-scripts.json file.

⁠Resources

• Hubot Documentation⁠
• Slack Developer Kit for Hubot⁠
• Slack API Test⁠
• Testing Hubot Scripts⁠