Ebony Framework

An easy to use, module-based, multi-channel chatbot framework.

Features

• Separation in independent, portable, easy to customize modules
• Separate adapters for interfacing with communication channels (For now Facebook Messenger and Viber)
• Route-based rules, with middlewares

Getting Started

For now, there is no detailed documentation for Ebony Framework. You can easily create an ebony-based Facebook Messenger Bot with the Messenger Bot Template. If you have any questions and/or suggestions feel free to open an issue, or create a pull request.

Install Ebony Framework

$ yarn add @ebenos/framework

Install an adapter

For Messenger:

$ yarn add @ebenos/messenger-adapter

For Viber:

$ yarn add @ebenos/viber-adapter

Initialize the bot

import { Bot } from '@ebenos/framework';

// Import the adapter (for example the Messenger Adapter) as well as the user model
import { MessengerAdapter, MessengerUser } from '@ebenos/messenger-adapter';

// ... Here import the modules you'll use...
import botModule from './modules/botModule';

// Here you initialize the adapter.
// For example the Messenger Adapter:
const adapter =
    new MessengerAdapter({
        pageId: /* Your FB Page ID */,
        pageToken: /* Your Page Token */ ,
        appSecret: /* Your App Secret */,
        webhookKey: /* Your Webhook Key */
    });

export const bot = new Bot<MessengerUser>(adapter, {
    mongodbUri: /* Your MongoDB Connection URI */
});

bot.addModule(botModule);

bot.start({
    port: 3000 // You can substitute "3000" with the PORT of your choice.
});

Channel Adapters

For now, only a Messenger Platform adapter is publicly available. If you want to use the Ebony Framework for another channel, open an issue to discuss the development of a new adapter.

Modules

A module is a portable collection of actions, rules and middlewares that is imported into the chatbot on runtime.

See Modules.md for more information.

Action

An action is a function that when it's triggered, it sends a message to the user.

Rules

There are multiple types of rules inside a module. A rule could be context based (ContextRouter), postback based (PostbackRouter) or even a regex (TextMatcher). These rules, work similarly to routes in a web framework. They point to an action that is triggered when the rule is satisfied.

Middlewares

Middlewares run before (preMiddlewares) and after (postMiddlewares) an action is triggered.

Development/Contributing

How to set up the ebony repository:

1. yarn install
2. yarn lerna bootstrap
3. yarn lerna run build

Linting

yarn lerna run lint

Next Steps

• Add tests
• Decouple database logic from framework (add support for multiple databases)
• Use redis for user context storing
• Create Slack adapter

Authors

• Christos Panagiotakopoulos - Initial Work & Project Leader
• Dimitrios Gkegkas - Maintainer & Contributor
• George Rouvalis - Initial Work on Viber integration

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.