Chatbots for Developers

Chatbots connect to the Klat server and respond to user shouts. Bots will respond individually like any other user in the conversation.

Generating Responses

Basic Bot

Basic bots override self.ask_chatbot to generate a response. Bots have access to the shout, the user who originated the shout, and the timestamp of the shout. Any means may be used to generate and return a response via the self.propose_response method.

Script Bot

Bots extending the NeonBot class operate by passing user shouts to a Neon Script and returning those responses. NeonBot init takes the name of the script to run ("SCRIPT_NAME" in the example below), as well as the messagebus configuration for the NeonCore instance on which to run the script.

Testing

Basic Bot

The response generation of a bot should be tested individually before connecting it to the Klat network. # TODO: Outline the convenience methods available to do this!!

Script Bot

A script should be tested separately from the bot before creating a NeonBot. More information about developing scripts can be found on the Neon Scripts Repository. After the script functions as expected, it can be used to extend a NeonBot.

Python Examples

Basic Bot

from chat_bot import ChatBot

class MyBot(ChatBot):
    def __init__(self, socket, domain, user, password):
        super(MyBot, self).__init__(socket, domain, user, password)
        self.last_search = None

    def ask_chatbot(self, user, shout, timestamp):
        """
        Handles an incoming shout into the current conversation
        :param user: user associated with shout
        :param shout: text shouted by user
        :param timestamp: formatted timestamp of shout
        """
        response = ""  # Generate some response here
        self.propose_response(shout, response)
        self.pause_responses()

    def on_login(self):
        """
        Do any initialization after logging in
        """
        pass

Script Bot

from neon_connector.neonbot import NeonBot
class ScriptBot(NeonBot):
    def __init__(self, socket, domain, user, password):
        super(ScriptBot, self).__init__(socket, domain, user, password, "SCRIPT NAME", {"host": "CORE_ADDR",
                                                                                        "port": 8181,
                                                                                        "ssl": False,
                                                                                        "route": "/core"})