Deltabot Quickstart: implement and run a chat bot with Python

Deltabot allows to implement and run chat bots for Delta Chat_.

Install

To install deltabot run the following command (preferably in a virtualenv):

.. code-block:: bash

$ pip3 install deltabot

Try typing "deltabot --version" to verify it worked.

.. note::

Deltabot requires Delta Chat's Python bindings.  On Linux bindings
have pre-built binary wheels and thus the above deltabot install should just work.
On other platforms you need to install the bindings from source, see
`deltachat Python bindings readme <https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-core-rust/tree/master/python>`_.

Initialize the bot

Configure an e-mail address for your chat bot (using example credentials)::

deltabot init tmp.vd9dd@testrun.org OzrSxdx5hiaD

Within a Delta Chat app (or another e-mail client), you may now send a chat /help message to tmp.vd9dd@testrun.org and should get a short list of available commands in the reply.

Try out an example "calculator" bot

Checkout the deltabot repo to play with some example bots::

git clone https://github.com/deltachat/deltabot
cd deltabot

Now you can register an example bot and send/receive messages:

1. Register the example "mycalc bot"::

   $ deltabot add-module example/mycalc.py

2. Now start serving the chat bot::

   $ deltabot serve

3. Within an Delta Chat app, you may now send a chat /help message to tmp.vd9dd@testrun.org and should get a short list of available commands in the reply. Send /mycalc 23+20-1 and wait for the the answer.

Note that the bot-answer speed largely depends on the provider you are using for the bot-email address. On test servers we get 3-5 seconds full roundtrips, between question and answer arriving back.

Writing setuptools plugins

You can implement your plugin as a proper python package or wheel by using setuptools. Have a look in the examples/deltachat_echo example directory which contains a complete example.

note for users

Deltabot uses Autocrypt <https://autocrypt.org/>_ end-to-end encryption but note that the operator of the bot service can look into messages that are sent to it.

Plugins

For many more examples and Deltabot plugins see:

https://github.com/simplebot-org/simplebot

.. _Delta Chat: https://delta.chat