Slack Bot

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a Slack bot that uses the Alith Python SDK to generate responses to messages. This bot will listen to messages in a slack channel and reply.

Note: Although we used Python in this tutorial, you can still use Alith Rust SDK and Node.js SDK to complete this robot. The benefit of using Alith Python SDK is that you can improve development efficiency while still getting a production-level AI Bot. For example, you can deploy the Bot on AWS Lambda, benefiting from the core Rust implementation and few Python dependencies, it will get a much smaller cold start than frameworks written by Python such as Langchain.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have the following:

OpenAI API Key: Sign up at OpenAI and get your API key.
Slack App and Bot Token: Create a Slack App and generate a Bot Token.
Python Environment: Install Python (3.8 or higher) and set up a virtual environment.

Install Required Libraries

Install the necessary Python libraries using pip:


python3 -m pip install alith slack_sdk slack_bolt

alith: Alith Agent SDK for Python
slack_sdk: Official Slack SDK for Python.
slack_bolt: A framework for building Slack apps.

Create a Slack App

Go to the Slack API and click Create New App.
Choose From scratch, give your app a name, and select your workspace.
Under OAuth & Permissions, add the following bot token scopes:

app_mentions:read
chat:write
im:history
im:write

Install the app to your workspace and copy the Bot Token (starts with xoxb-).
Under Socket Mode, enable it and generate an App Token (starts with xapp-).

Set Up Environment Variables

Store your API keys and tokens as environment variables for security:


export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-openai-api-key"
export SLACK_BOT_TOKEN="xoxb-your-slack-bot-token"
export SLACK_APP_TOKEN="xapp-your-slack-app-token"

Write the Slack Bot Code

Create a Python script (e.g., slack-bot.py) and add the following code:


import os
from alith import Agent
from slack_bolt import App
from slack_bolt.adapter.socket_mode import SocketModeHandler
 
# Initialize Slack Bolt app with the bot token
slack_app = App(token=os.getenv("SLACK_BOT_TOKEN"))
agent = Agent(
    name="Slack Bot Agent",
    model="gpt-4",
    preamble="""You are an advanced AI assistant built by [Alith](https://github.com/0xLazAI/alith).""",
)
 
# Define a message handler
@slack_app.message("")
def handle_message(message, say):
    # Use the agent to generate a response
    response = agent.prompt(message["text"])
    # Send the reply back to the Slack channel
    say(response)
 
# Start the bot using Socket Mode
if __name__ == "__main__":
    handler = SocketModeHandler(slack_app, os.getenv("SLACK_APP_TOKEN"))
    handler.start()

Run the Slack Bot

Run your Python script to start the bot:


python3 slack-bot.py

Test the Bot

Go to your Slack workspace.
Mention the bot in a channel or send it a direct message.

Deploy the Bot

To keep the bot running 24/7, deploy it to a cloud platform like:

Heroku: Follow the Heroku Python deployment guide .
AWS Lambda: Use the Serverless Framework to deploy the bot.
Google Cloud Run: Follow the Google Cloud Run documentation .

Enhance the Bot

Here are some ideas to improve your bot:

Contextual Conversations: Store conversation history to enable multi-turn dialogues.
Error Handling: Add error handling for API failures or invalid inputs.
Custom Commands: Allow users to trigger specific actions (e.g., /ask for questions).
Rate Limiting: Prevent abuse by limiting the number of requests per user.