Deltabot Quickstart: implement and run a chat bot with Python

Deltabot allows to implement and run chat bots for Delta Chat.

Install

To install deltabot run the following command (preferably in a virtualenv):

$ pip3 install deltabot

Try typing "deltabot --version" to verify it worked.

Note

Deltabot requires Delta Chat's Python bindings. On Linux bindings have pre-built binary wheels and thus the above deltabot install should just work. On other platforms you need to install the bindings from source, see deltachat Python bindings readme.

Initialize the bot

Configure an e-mail address for your chat bot (using example credentials):

deltabot init [email protected] OzrSxdx5hiaD

Within a Delta Chat app (or another e-mail client), you may now send a chat /help message to [email protected] and should get a short list of available commands in the reply.

Try out an example "calculator" bot

Checkout the deltabot repo to play with some example bots:

git clone https://github.com/deltachat/deltabot
cd deltabot

Now you can register an example bot and send/receive messages:

1. Register the example "mycalc bot":

   $ deltabot add-module example/mycalc.py
   

2. Now start serving the chat bot:

   $ deltabot serve
   

3. Within an Delta Chat app, you may now send a chat /help message to [email protected] and should get a short list of available commands in the reply. Send /mycalc 23+20-1 and wait for the the answer.

Note that the bot-answer speed largely depends on the provider you are using for the bot-email address. On test servers we get 3-5 seconds full roundtrips, between question and answer arriving back.

Writing setuptools plugins

You can implement your plugin as a proper python package or wheel by using setuptools. Have a look in the examples/deltachat_echo example directory which contains a complete example.

note for users

Deltabot uses Autocrypt end-to-end encryption but note that the operator of the bot service can look into messages that are sent to it.

Plugins

For many more examples and Deltabot plugins see:

https://github.com/simplebot-org/simplebot