This is the a Spark Bot for a basic microservice demo application. This provides an interactive chat service for a voting system where users can vote for their favorite movie superhero.
Details on deploying the entire demo to a Mantl cluster can be found at
The application was designed to provide a simple demo for Cisco Mantl. It is written as a simple Python Flask application and deployed as a docker container.
**NOTE: To leverage the Spark Bot Service, your Mantl Cluster MUST be configured for deployed applications to be accessible from the public Internet. This is because it relies on the Spark Cloud to be able to send a WebHook to the myhero_spark application you run in Mantl***
Other services are:
The docker containers are available at
In order to use this service, you will need a Cisco Spark Account to use for the bot. The bot is built for ease of use, meaning any message to the account used to create the Bot will be acted on and replied to. This means you'll need to create a new Spark account for the demo.
Creating an account is free and only requires a working email account (each Spark Account needs a unique email address). Visit http://www.ciscospark.com to signup for an account.
Developer access to Spark is also free and information is available at http://developer.ciscospark.com.
In order to access the APIs of Spark, this bot needs the Developer Token for your account. To find it:
Copy to copy your Access Token to your clipboardVagrantfile you create later, be sure not to commit this file. Otherwise your credentials will be availabe to anyone who might look at your code later on GitHub.Required
pip install -r requirements.txtIn order to run, the service needs several pieces of information to be provided:
These details can be provided in one of three ways.
As a command line argument
python myhero_spark/myhero_spark.py \
--app "http://myhero-app.server.com" \
--appkey "APP AUTH KEY" \
--secret "BOT AUTH KEY" \
--boturl "http://myhero-spark.server.com" \
--botemail "myhero.demo@server.com" \
--token "HAAKJ1231KFSDFKJSDF1232132"As environment variables
export myhero_app_server=http://myhero-app.server.com`
export myhero_app_key=APP AUTH KEY`
export myhero_spark_bot_email=myhero.demo@server.com`
export spark_token=HAAKJ1231KFSDFKJSDF1232132`
export myhero_spark_bot_url=http://myhero-spark.server.com`
export myhero_spark_bot_secret="BOT AUTH KEY"`
python myhero_spark/myhero_spark.py`As raw input when the application is run
python myhero_app/myhero_app.py`
What is the app server address? http://myhero-app.server.com`
App Server Key: APP AUTH KEY`
.
.
A command line argument overrides an environment variable, and raw input is only used if neither of the other two options provide needed details.
Upon startup, the service registers a webhook to send all new messages to the service address.
The Spark Bot is a very simple interface that is designed to make it intuitive to use. Simply send any message to the Spark Bot Email Address to have the bot reply back with some instructions on how to access the features.
The bot is deisgned to look for commands to act on, and provide the basic help message for anything else. The commands are:
The main service API is at the root of the applciation and is what is used for the Spark Webhooks.
There is an API call that can be leveraged to have the Spark Bot initiate a chat session with a user. This API responds to GET requests and then will send a Spark message to the email provided.
Example usage
curl http://myhero-spark.domain.local/hello/user@email.com This is an API call that can be used to test if the Spark Bot service is functioning properly.
curl -v http://myhero-spark.domain.local/health
* Trying...
* Connected to myhero-spark.domain.local (x.x.x.x)
> GET /health HTTP/1.1
> Host: myhero-spark.domain.local
> User-Agent: curl/7.43.0
> Accept: */*
>
* HTTP 1.0, assume close after body
< HTTP/1.0 200 OK
< Connection: close
<
* Closing connection 0
Service up. I've included the configuration files needed to do local development with Vagrant in the repo. Vagrant will still use Docker for local development and requires the following be installed on your laptop:
Before running vagrant up you will need to finish the Vagrant file configuration by adding the Spark Account Email and Token to the environment variables used by the container. To do this:
cp Vagrantfile.sample VagrantfileVagrantfile and add your details where indicated
vim Vagrantfilemyherospark_bot_email and spark_token in the docker.env hashTo start local development run:
vagrant upcurl -H "key: DevBot" http://localhost:15003/demoroom/membersEach of the services in the application (i.e. myhero_web, myhero_app, and myhero_data) include Vagrant support to allow working locally on all three simultaneously.