README.md

Usher Slackbot

##Getting Started

Before taking any steps you need to get a BOT API KEY from the Slack intergration settings and create a bot to test with

1. Install dependencies

• run npm install

2. Install postgrepsql (possible from Homebrew)

• After installing, you will need to run the background service (or edit your launch agent to run service in backgrond from boot it)

3. Setup DB

• run postgres -D /usr/local/var/postgres
• Next few steps may only need to be run once
• run which psql which should return the location of psql
• run createdb 'whoami' to produce the database
• run psql to start postgrep clli
• CREATE DATABASE dbName;
• Create a user by running CREATE ROLE "name" WITH LOGIN PASSWORD "password";
• run \du to check if the role is there.
• \q to exit current database.
• run psql dbName userName -h localhost to enter cli for your new db
• run CREATE TABLE movies ( id SERIAL, title varchar(80), votes int); to create a table with the specified structure

4.) Run Bot

• You need two environment variables, BOT_API_KEY, and PG_URL (url to hit database)
• create a .env file in the working directory with the env variables defined in it

Running the bot locally

• run postgres -D /usr/local/var/postgres
• run npm start

Running the bot from heroku (run instance)

• Running the bot

  • log into the heroku instance from the project directory
  • then type heroku run:detached npm start

• Stopping the bot

  • Dynos are the individual instances running from heroku. View them by using heroku ps
  • Stopping an instance requires you to know the dyno name from ps and typing heroku ps:stop (name)

Deploying

• Deploying on Heroku is easy
• Check to ensure that you have Postgresql by running heroku pg:info

1. Setting up your Heroku pg database

• Establish a database by running heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev
  • Where hobby-dev is the plan name. For our purposes we'll use the free hobby dev plan
  • You will see something like HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_COLOR_URL. This is the alias for the URL of your database
• Run heroku pg:psql
• YOU MUST HAVE POSTGRESQL INSTALLED TO USE heroku pg:psql
• This will establish a connection to your Heroku pg database

2. Creating your database

• From there, you will see a psql instance. Run your table commands here
  • For this project, CREATE TABLE movies (id SERIAL, title VARCHAR(35), votes INT); will create the same database

3. Ensure your config variables match

• Ensure that your heroku database URL and Slack API keys match up in your Heroku app dashboard

4. Finally, deploy your code

• You can deploy by commiting to the remote heroku master branch
  • You do this by running git push heroku master
  • You must have the Heroku Toolbelt to be able to hook into the Heroku remote branch