Facebook Messenger BotWith Flask & Google App Engine

Nazrul Kamaruddinnazroll@gmail.com

PyCon Malaysia 2016

Who am i?

@nazrollSoftware Engineer, Sparkline Pte. Ltd.Organizer, Google Developer Groups Kuala Lumpur

Previously: Media Prima Digital (Digital Media & Online Services), Chalkboard (Hyperlocal Ad Network) & a long list of adventures.

Building software for the World Wide Web since 1999.

First things first...

Local development setup

Python (2.7 and above)

pip

virtualenv

Google Cloud SDK (http://cloud.google.com/sdk)

Install the Python component from Google Cloud SDK

First things first...

Facebook Page & Messenger API setup

It takes about 5 steps. RTFM PLZ http://goo.gl/gUKgA0

Create an Facebook App & a Page

http://goo.gl/gUKgA0

Setup a Webhook

http://goo.gl/gUKgA0

Caveats

Testing your code with localhost:8080 does not work with Facebook Messenger

CANNOT USE LOCALHOST:8080?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Caveats

Testing your code with localhost:8080 does not work with Facebook Messenger

Testing your bot can only happen in a live environment. Literally.

Create a Google Cloud project

Why Google App Engine?

It just scale for you automatically.

That’s it.

Nothing else to say.

Get the App Engine application URL

Example URL for your webhook: https://noobotkit.appspot.com

Setup a Webhook

http://goo.gl/gUKgA0

Put that URL here

http://noobotkit.appspot.com/webhook

Get FB Page Access Token

http://goo.gl/gUKgA0

Subscribe the App to a Page

http://goo.gl/gUKgA0

Summary

1. Setup local development with Google Cloud SDK installed

2. Setup your Google Cloud project.

a. Save the project URL for App Engine: https://myprojectname.appspot.com

3. Setup your Facebook Messenger App

a. Use the URL, e.g http://myprojectname.appspot.com, as the webhook URL.

Let’s build something

Clone the repohttps://github.com/nazroll/noobotkit

Let’s look into requirements.txt

Only need the flask-restful package(s)

main.py

Create a RESTful URL route

Why Flask? Why RESTful?

Flask is a framework that with a small footprint IMHO

You can use other frameworks like Bottle, etc. Your choice amigo.

flask-restful allows me to have a clean structure.

HTTP request as a method. Example:

HTTP POST > def post:

HTTP GET > def get:

bot/facebook.pyHandle GET requests.Only useful for token verification.

Handle POST requests.This is where the action is. FB only send payload as HTTP POST to the bot app.

bot/facebook.pyHandling text inputsIt’s like a SMS shortcode.A set of text commands to request for data (news stories, event schedule, etc).

bot/facebook.pyexample_message_textText only reply from the app.

recipient_id:Facebook ID of the user

message:The text message that you want respond back to the user.

bot/facebook.py example_message_imageText + Image reply from the app.

recipient_id:Facebook ID of the user

message:The image payload that you want to send to user and display on the Messenger app(s).attachment

type:payload:

url:

bot/facebook.py

Sending the response back to FBMust include the Facebook Page access tokenUse urlfetch to make those requests

DEMO

Summary

1. Setup local development with Google Cloud SDK installed

2. Setup your Google Cloud project.

a. Save the project URL for App Engine: https://myprojectname.appspot.com

3. Setup your Facebook Messenger App

a. Use the URL, e.g http://myprojectname.appspot.com, as the webhook URL.

4. To test your bot, you have to push it to a live instance.

5. Flask’s flask-restful library gives you a production ready interface to build RESTful endpoints

6. There’s a lot more different types of responses that you can create.

RTFM: http://goo.gl/2GVAXC

7. You are welcome to contribute in the Github project!

Referencesnoobotkithttps://github.com/nazroll/noobotkit

facebook-chatbot-pythonhttps://github.com/hult/facebook-chatbot-python

PyMessengerhttps://github.com/enginebai/PyMessager

How to build and deploy a Facebook Messenger bot with Python and Flaskhttp://goo.gl/LS6Qgg

Facebook Messenger API docshttps://developers.facebook.com/docs/messenger-platform

Thank you!nazroll@gmail.com

nazroll.com

https://github.com/nazroll/noobotkit