Slack AI Chatbot with DigitalOcean GenAI

This Slack chatbot app template provides a customizable solution for integrating AI-powered conversations into your Slack workspace using DigitalOcean's GenAI Platform. Deploy the app on DigitalOcean App Platform for a fully managed experience.

Features

• Interact with the bot by mentioning it in conversations and threads
• Send direct messages to the bot for private interactions
• Use the /ask-sailor command to communicate with the bot in channels where it hasn't been added
• Use the /sailor-summary command to have Sailor summarize a Slack thread and DM you an AI generated summary
• Utilize a custom function for integration with Workflow Builder to summarize messages
• Select your preferred AI model from the app home to customize responses
• Seamless integration with DigitalOcean GenAI Platform
• Choice of state storage (optional):
  • File-based state store creates a file in /data per user to store preferences
  • Redis state store for distributed deployments (recommended for App Platform)

Installation

Prerequisites

• A Slack workspace where you have permissions to install apps
• Access to the DigitalOcean GenAI Platform

Create a Slack App

1. Open https://api.slack.com/apps/new and choose "From an app manifest"
2. Choose the workspace you want to install the application to
3. Copy the contents of manifest.json into the text box that says *Paste your manifest code here* (within the JSON tab) and click Next
4. Review the configuration and click Create
5. Click Install to Workspace and Allow on the screen that follows. You'll be redirected to the App Configuration dashboard.

Environment Variables

Before running the app, store these environment variables:

1. From your app's configuration page, go to OAuth & Permissions and copy the Bot User OAuth Token (SLACK_BOT_TOKEN)
2. From Basic Information, create an app-level token with the connections:write scope (SLACK_APP_TOKEN)
3. Get your DigitalOcean GenAI API key from the DigitalOcean dashboard (GENAI_API_KEY)
4. Set your GenAI API URL, append /api/v1 (GENAI_API_URL)

# Set environment variables
export SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=<your-bot-token>
export SLACK_APP_TOKEN=<your-app-token>
export GENAI_API_KEY=<your-genai-api-key>
export GENAI_API_URL=<your-genai-api-url>  # https://agent-<id>.ondigitalocean.app/api/v1

Local Development

# Clone this project
git clone https://github.com/DO-Solutions/slack-digitalocean-genai-agent

# Navigate to the project directory
cd bolt-python-ai-chatbot

# Setup python virtual environment
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Start your local server
python3 app.py

Deploy to DigitalOcean App Platform

This application can be easily deployed to DigitalOcean App Platform:

1. Fork or clone this repository to your GitHub account
2. In the DigitalOcean control panel, go to App Platform and create a new app
3. Connect your GitHub repository
4. Configure the environment variables (SLACK_BOT_TOKEN, SLACK_APP_TOKEN, GENAI_API_KEY, GENAI_API_URL)
5. Optionally add a Redis database component for state storage
6. Deploy the application

Project Structure

/ai - AI Integration

The /ai directory contains the core AI functionality:

• ai_constants.py: Defines constants used throughout the AI module
• /providers/__init__.py: Contains utility functions for handling API responses and available providers

The GenAI provider enables communication with DigitalOcean's GenAI Platform through an OpenAI-compatible API.

/state_store - User Data Storage

For App Platform deployments, we recommend using the Redis state storage option:

# Set Redis connection string
export REDIS_URL=<your-redis-connection-string>

Example with DigitalOcean Managed Redis:

export REDIS_URL=rediss://default:password@hostname.db.ondigitalocean.com:25061

Alternative AI Providers

While DigitalOcean GenAI is the primary focus, this template also supports other AI providers:

OpenAI

To use OpenAI models, add your API key:

export OPENAI_API_KEY=<your-api-key>

Anthropic

For Anthropic models, configure your API key:

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=<your-api-key>

Bring Your Own Language Model

You can create a custom provider by extending the base class in ai/providers/base_api.py and updating ai/providers/__init__.py to include your implementation.