Bots Development Environment Setup

Requirements

Developing bots on RocketChat requires you to get and customize our boilerplate code. To do that, you need to have the following on your machine.

• Git

• Node.js

Bot Configuration

Regardless of bot type, the Rocket.Chat SDK requires you to create a configuration with some variables for your environment. This configuration can be stored in a .env file, for local development, for example. In production, they would need to be set on server startup.

Bots Environmental variables

The following is a list of all the environmental variables you can use in your project.

Variables marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory.

Environment Variable	Description
ROCKETCHAT_URL *	URL of the Rocket.Chat instance to connect to. Can be specified as host:port, http://host:port or https://host:port.
ROCKETCHAT_USE_SSL	Force bot to connect with SSL. If unset, it will try and detect from URL protocol.
ROCKETCHAT_AUTH	Authorization method for a bot. Default: password. Set to ldap to enable LDAP login for bot users.
ROCKETCHAT_USER *	The bot's username (account name users will summon the bot with). Must be registered on your Rocket.Chat server and granted bot role.
ROCKETCHAT_PASSWORD *	The bot user's password.
ROCKETCHAT_ROOM	Stream callbacks receive messages from the listed channel name/s. Default: GENERAL. Accepts a comma separated list. Allows the bot to listen and respond to messages from all newly created private groups where the bot's user has been added as a member. Should be empty if LISTEN_ON_ALL_PUBLIC=true
Responding to channels and DMS
RESPOND_TO_LIVECHAT	Stream callbacks receive messages from Livechat (true/false). Default: false.
RESPOND_TO_DM	Stream callbacks receive DMs with bot (true/false). Default: false.
RESPOND_TO_EDITED	Stream callbacks receive edited messages (true/false). Default: false.
SDK Development
ROOM_CACHE_SIZE	Size of cache (LRU) for room (ID or name) lookups.
ROOM_CACHE_MAX_AGE	Max age of cache for room lookups.
DM_ROOM_CACHE_SIZE	Size of cache for Direct Message room lookups.
DM_ROOM_CACHE_MAX_AGE	Max age of cache for DM lookups.
INTEGRATION_ID	ID applied to message object to integration source. Default: js.SDK
ADMIN_USERNAME	Admin user name for API calls used in SDK tests.
ADMIN_PASS	Admin user password for API calls used in SDK tests.
Hubot Specific
HUBOT_NAME	Name of the bot. Hubot listeners can respond to this.
HUBOT_ALIAS	Another name to respond to. If unset, the adapter sets the ROCKETCHAT_USER as an alias, to ensure bots respond when addressed using their username.
EXTERNAL_SCRIPTS	Hubot scripts to require as NPM modules. Used only in some Docker instances.
HUBOT_LOG_LEVEL	debug, info, warning or error. Default: info.

Environment Variable	Description
ROCKETCHAT_URL *	URL of the Rocket.Chat instance to connect to. Can be specified as host:port, http://host:port or https://host:port.
ROCKETCHAT_USE_SSL	Force bot to connect with SSL. If unset, it will try and detect from URL protocol.
ROCKETCHAT_AUTH	Authorization method for a bot. Default: password. Set to ldap to enable LDAP login for bot users.
ROCKETCHAT_USER *	The bot's username (account name users will summon the bot with). Must be registered on your Rocket.Chat server and granted bot role.
ROCKETCHAT_PASSWORD *	The bot user's password.
ROCKETCHAT_ROOM	Stream callbacks receive messages from the listed channel name/s. Default: GENERAL. Accepts a comma separated list. Allows the bot to listen and respond to messages from all newly created private groups where the bot's user has been added as a member. Should be empty if LISTEN_ON_ALL_PUBLIC=true
Responding to channels and DMS
RESPOND_TO_LIVECHAT	Stream callbacks receive messages from Livechat (true/false). Default: false.
RESPOND_TO_DM	Stream callbacks receive DMs with bot (true/false). Default: false.
RESPOND_TO_EDITED	Stream callbacks receive edited messages (true/false). Default: false.
SDK Development
ROOM_CACHE_SIZE	Size of cache (LRU) for room (ID or name) lookups.
ROOM_CACHE_MAX_AGE	Max age of cache for room lookups.
DM_ROOM_CACHE_SIZE	Size of cache for Direct Message room lookups.
DM_ROOM_CACHE_MAX_AGE	Max age of cache for DM lookups.
INTEGRATION_ID	ID applied to message object to integration source. Default: js.SDK
ADMIN_USERNAME	Admin user name for API calls used in SDK tests.
ADMIN_PASS	Admin user password for API calls used in SDK tests.
Hubot Specific
HUBOT_NAME	Name of the bot. Hubot listeners can respond to this.
HUBOT_ALIAS	Another name to respond to. If unset, the adapter sets the ROCKETCHAT_USER as an alias, to ensure bots respond when addressed using their username.
EXTERNAL_SCRIPTS	Hubot scripts to require as NPM modules. Used only in some Docker instances.
HUBOT_LOG_LEVEL	debug, info, warning or error. Default: info.

Common Set of Variables

The common set for the majority of bots is to listen and respond to direct messages and all new public channels and private groups:

• RESPOND_TO_DM=true

• ROCKETCHAT_ROOM=''

Note that you must add the bot's user as a member of the new private group(s) before it will respond.