Hi! If you're reading this then you're currently looking at the refactor branch. A lot is changing from the old branch. Feel free to help out if you want. Checkout the master branch (or in the git history) if you want to see the old code.
An IRC bot hub.
Kittens started as a really basic IRC bot written in Node.js when I wanted to learn some server-side JavaScript Then it evolved into CoffeeScript when I decided I wanted to learn CoffeeScript. Eventually it transformed into Go when I wanted to learn Go! (See a pattern here?) I'm most likely not going to be re-writing Kittens in any other language anymore. Instead, I decided to refactor it and transform it into an IRC bot hub instead of an IRC bot.
Yes!
When I started writting Kittens I just wanted a nice IRC bot. When I rewrote Kittens for the second time, I gave it a web user-interface--but it was never completed. This time I've decided to make Kittens more user-oriented. By default when you run Kittens for the first time it will create a default user/password (which you may--and really, really should since the password is in the code--change once logged in for the first time) for you to use. There's an environment variable you can set to allow other users to register if you wish to allow multiple users.
Users create bots that connect to networks which are controlled via their user on the web interface. Each bot can be configured however the user wants with any number of plugins.
The old code was licensed under GPL-3.0, but as of the most recent refactor I've decided to relicense Kittens under MIT. See the LICENSE file for more information regarding the license.
TODO LATER WHEN THE REFACTOR IS DONE.
TODO LATER WHEN THE REFACTOR IS DONE.
Plugins are written in GopherLua which is almost identical to Lua, but with slight differences. Take a look at the differences between Lua and GopherLua to get started writing plugins.
Let's look at the basic structure of a plugin:
on("EVENTCODE", function (event)
-- implementation here
end)The function on is a global function that binds a function to an IRC event code, and is the main function in Kittens plugins.
These are functions that are not Lua specific, but are Kittens specific global Lua functions. Their documentation is below, and examples of each can most likely be found in the plugins folder.
Run a callback function when an IRC event occurs. This is the main function that every plugin is going to have. The most common IRC event code to listen on is "PRIVMSG" which occurs on every message in a channel.
--- Run a callback function when an IRC event occurs
-- @param code The IRC event code to listen for
-- @param func The callback function to run
function on(code, func)The callback function is passed one parameter which contains all of the event information in a table. The event information includes the following data:
message - The IRC message related to this event.channel - The IRC channel that this event happened in.nick - The nickname of the user that is related to the event.host - The hostname of the user that is related to the event.user - The user that is related to the event.source - The full host (<nick>!<user>@<host>) of the user that is related to the event.raw - The raw IRC message.Reload all plugins in an IRC channel. No parameters are given in this function because the Lua state already knows what channel the plugins need to be reloaded in.
--- Reload all plugins in an IRC channel
function reload()Send a message to an IRC channel. With this function, an IRC bot can say anything to any channel or user (omit the # in the channel parameter to send a message to a user).
--- Send a message to an IRC channel
-- @param channel The channel to send a message to
-- @param message The message to send to a channel
function say(channel, message)Join a new IRC channel. With this function you can have the IRC bot join new channels with the default behavior being to copy the existing plugin structure. The first parameter is the channel to be joined, and the second parameter is a boolean value that determines if the bot should start fresh with no included plugins. If the second parameter is omitted, it will act as if the value given is false and the plugin structure of the current channel will be duplicated to the new channel.
If the IRC bot joins a currently disabled channel, that channel will be re-enabled, and the second parameter will be discarded and the existing plugin structure for the re-enabled channel will be used.
-- Join a new IRC channel
-- @param channel The channel to join
-- @param fresh Boolean to not copy the existing plugin structure - optional: default false
function join(channel, fresh)Part an IRC channel. With this function you can have the IRC bot leave an IRC channel. The first parameter is the channel to leave, and the second parameter is a boolean value that determines if the channel should be completely removed with all related data from the database or not. If the second parameter is omitted, it will act as if the value given is false and the channel and all related data will not be deleted, but set to disabled.
--- Part an IRC channel
-- @param channel The channel to part
-- @param hard - Boolean to completely remove channel and all related data from database - optional: default false
function part(channel, hard)This guide is still being written as the codebase has been changing drastically. Feel free to open any issue you want.