Creating Your Own Bot From Scratch
This document outlines the steps required to create your first bot with Rocket.Chat.
In order to talk to your chatbot, there must be a user account pre-configured on the Rocket.Chat server that the bot can use to log in.
To add user accounts you need to have admin privileges:
- On the top bar, click the three dots (Options) and then click Administration
- Select Users from the left sidebar
- Click
+
(Add User) button in the right sidebar

- In the profile window that appears, fill in the Name, Username, Email, and Password fields
- Enable Verified toggle under the Email field
- Disable Require password change toggle under the Password field
- Select
bot
from theAdd Role
dropdown menu and click Add Role button to the right - Disable Join default channels and Send welcome email checkboxes
- Click Save
Once saved, the bot's credential will be configured with the
HAT_USER
and ROCKETCHAT_PASSWORD
environmental variables of your bot.To avoid creating multiple accounts for bot emails, you can use a Gmail +
address
alias. For example: [email protected]
. See this issue for more.To make the process of coding a bot easier and faster, you may want to check our existing guides below to deploy a basic bot instance quickly. As an advanced alternative, you can create your bot from the scratch using your favorite framework.
If the bot is configured to listen to direct messages (
RESPOND_TO_DM=true
), and messages are prepended with BOT_NAME
or a preconfigured BOT_ALIAS
, the bot will usually respond to all messages addressed directly to the bot user (depending on the particular bot framework).Last modified 5mo ago