Goat Bot

A silly but functional demo of the Microsoft Bot Framework.
This project consists of two apps and their source:

• Bot - Main restful bot application written using the Bot Framework SDK and Node.js
• Site - A simple Node.js Express site called 'Goat Info Central' to host the goat bot web chat client.

Goat Bot Functionality

The Goat Bot demonstrates several capabilities:

• The Microsoft Bot Framework and SDK
• Use of advanced cognitive services for image recognition
• Bot Framework web chat client integration
• Hosting in Azure platform services (PaaS web apps) via templates and automated deployment

Screenshots

Pre Requisites

Register a new bot and associated Microsoft app id. Do this from the Bot Framework site

https://dev.botframework.com/bots/new

Follow the steps on the page to create the bot and associated MS app id, make a note of the app id and password. Also make a note of the bot handle you used, don't worry about the endpoint now this will be changed later

Running the bot locally

• Clone this repo
• Download & install Node.js
• Download & install the emulator
• For full functionality create a computer vision Azure Cognitive Service account and make a note of the API key & the region your created it in. Note. You can skip this step and still run the bot
• Create a file called .env in the bot folder of the cloned repo, and populate as follows

MICROSOFT_APP_ID = <app_id>
MICROSOFT_APP_PASSWORD = <app_password>
MICROSOFT_VISION_API_KEY = <api_key>
MICROSOFT_VISION_API_REGION = <api_region>

• Run the bot

cd bot
npm install
node app.js

• Point the emulator at http://localhost:3978/api/messages and fill in your app id and password
• Chat away!

Note. The website part of this project can be run locally too, however it requires a working external bot endpoint (i.e. one running in Azure, can not me localhost) for the webchat to work.

Running in Azure

• Deploy via the supplied template and 'Deploy To Azure' button found here on Github
• Supply your existing bot handle, MS app id and password.
  The 'web Site Name' and 'botSiteName' parameters are the names of the new Azure Web Apps that will be deployed, pick globally unique names
• Once deployed, edit your bot details and modify the 'Messaging endpoint' to point at your Azure web app hosting the bot, it will need to be suffixed with /api/messages and start with https not http, e.g. https://goatbotbc.azurewebsites.net/api/messages
• Test the bot from the bot details page
• To configure the web chat client on the deployed website
  • Click 'Edit' over on the left of the Web Chat channel section
  • Add a new site (call it anything)
  • Then click 'Show' on one of the secret keys and copy the value
  • In the Azure portal find your Web App hosting the site (not the bot)
  • Click into 'Application Settings'
  • Edit the app setting called 'BOT_WEBCHAT_SECRET' and update the value with the secret