---
title: "Bots Development Environment Setup"
slug: "bots-development-environment-setup"
tags: ["Deprecated"]
updated: 2025-06-03T11:37:50Z
published: 2025-06-03T11:37:50Z
deprecated: true
stale: true
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developer.rocket.chat/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Bots Development Environment Setup

![](https://cdn.us.document360.io/27ca1fd4-36d7-4cde-b4eb-97fc1652954c/Images/Documentation/Deprecated.svg)

> [!WARNING]
> Bots integration has been deprecated. We recommend building with [Apps-Engine](/v1/docs/rocketchat-apps-engine) instead.

## Prerequisites

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](http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-Installing-Git)
- [Node.js](https://nodejs.org)

## 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, while in production, they would need to be set on server startup.

### Bot environmental variables

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

> [!WARNING]
> 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`. |

### 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 a channel before the bot can respond.