A Sylvia Plath Slack bot

'If you expect nothing from anybody, you’re never disappointed.'

Set Up

Install the Google Cloud SDK.

Initialise gcloud (and authorise with your project):

gcloud init

Install Node.js

Install Docker

Install the dependencies:

npm install

Slackbot

Create a Slack bot and generate an API token.

Save this as a file called slack-token in the project directory

Running Locally

(Ctrl-C to close)

export slack_token_path=./slack-token

node plathbot.js

Deploying

Secrets API

Push the key to the Kubernetes Secrets API so that it is not in the Docker image:

kubectl create secret generic slack-token --from-file=./slack-token

Packaging

Get your project ID:

export PROJECT_ID=$(gcloud config list --format 'value(core.project)')

Build a Docker image (change version number if required):

docker build -t gcr.io/${PROJECT_ID}/slack-plathbot:v1 .

Test Docker image:

docker run -d \
    -v $(pwd)/:/config \
    -e slack_token_path=/config/slack-token \
    gcr.io/${PROJECT_ID}/slack-plathbot:v1

Kill Docker container:

docker ps

docker stop <container_id>

Push to Google Container Registry:

gcloud docker -- push gcr.io/${PROJECT_ID}/slack-plathbot:v1

Create a Kubernetes cluster:

gcloud container clusters create plathbot-cluster \
      --num-nodes=2 \
      --zone=europe-west2-b \
      --machine-type n1-standard-1

When the cluster is created (takes some time) deploy to Kubernetes:

kubectl create -f slack-plathbot-deployment.yaml --record

Check the bot is running (STATUS: Running):

kubectl get pods

Your bot should be online in Slack so you can DM it or invite to a channel.

Undeploying

Delete the deployment:

kubectl delete deployment slack-plathbot

Delete the cluster:

gcloud container clusters delete plathbot-cluster

You can also delete the image from the Container Registry if you wish to.