Set up Sherpa Slackbot in your Own Workspace#
This tutorial describes how to run the Sherpa SlackBot in your own Slack Workspace. We will start by installing the dependencies necessary for the SlackBot. Then we will create a Slack APP by in a new workspace. Finally, we will connect the SlackBot to the Sherpa backend so that you can talk to the SlackBot.
Video tutorial#
Install Slack App#
In order to make it easier to test the Slack APP, we will create a test Slack Workspace. Skip this step if you already have a Slack Workspace that you can play with.
Follow the instructions here to create a new Slack Workspace.
Next, we will create a new Slack app and add it to the Slack Workspace we just created.
- In this page, you can view all apps you have created. Click on the button “Create New App” to create a new app.
- Choose From scratch and give your app a name (We will use Sherpa throughout this tutorial). Then choose the workspace you just created. In my case, I called the app Sherpa and the workspace sherpa-testing.
- Once you create the app, you will be redirected to the home page of the newly created app, on the side bar, find OAuth & Permissions and add the following Scopes (note: you may need to scroll down to see this option). These scopes will grant the Slack bot access to reading, writing, and sending messages to the Slack workspace.
- Scroll the page and find OAuth Tokens for Your Workspace, click on the install app option, or click on reinstall app if you’ve already done this before.
- Once you install the app, you should be able to see it appear in your Slack Workspace.
Congratulations! You have successfully created a Slack App and installed it in your Slack Workspace.
Run the Slackbot Locally#
Next, we will run the slack app project locally. The slackapp project is part of the Sherpa repository. If you haven’t done so, follow this guide: Run and Develop Sherpa Slackbot to set up the repository.
Connect Slack Bot to the App#
Up to this point, we have created a Slack App and installed it in a Slack Workspace. We have also run the SlackBot locally. Now, we will connect the Slack App to the SlackBot so that you can talk to the SlackBot in the Slack Workspace.
However, before we can do that, we will need to expose the local app to the Internet. There are many ways to do this, we will use ngrok to expose the local app to the Internet.
Download and install ngrok from https://ngrok.com/download.
Run the following command in anther terminal window to expose the local app to the Internet. (Note we use port 3000 because we set the SLACK_PORT to 3000 in the .env file)
ngrok http 3000
You should see this in the terminal window if everything is working properly
Now we have all the pieces ready, let’s connect everything together.
Go to the Event Subscriptions page of your Slack App, and enter the URL of the ngrok forwarding address in the Request URL field. In the above image, the URL is https://efb0-2607-fea8-125e-d700-79b8-a450-f057-a944.ngrok-free.app/slack/events (Yes! Sadly the URL is randomly generated and we will need to change the URL every time when we restart ngrok :(. Don’t hesitate to let us know if there is a way to persist the URL :)). Note that the URL should end with /slack/events. If everything is working properly, you should see a green check mark next to the URL field as Verified.
Finally, we need let Slack know when we want the SlackBot to react to the messages. In the Subscribe to bot events section, add the following events:
app_mention
Last but not least, click on Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.
OK, we are almost there. In order to talk to the Slackbot, we will need to add it to one of the channels . Go to the #general channel of your Slack Workspace, click on the members button and select Integrations -> Add An App.
Select Sherpa (or the name you give to your app) in the pop-up window.
Now we are all set! You can type any message and add @Sherpa (or the name of your app) to start talking with your own slack bot!
Have fun! And please join our slack channel if you are interested in contributing to this project!