Running locally

To start the bot locally wxc_cc_bot.py needs to be executed.

As soon as the bot in wxc_cc_bot.create_app() detects that it’s not running on Heroku (environment variable HEROKU_NAME not set) a public URL for the bot is determined by calling ngrokhelper.get_public_url().

The ngrok URL is either based on the value of the environment variable NGROK_HOST (running in Docker) or a local ngrok process is started. In both cases ngrokhelper.get_public_url() polls the API of the ngrok instance (local process or in the ngrok docker container) to determine the public URL that then can be used as the base URL for webhook creation.

_images/local.png

  • wxc_cc_bot.py: Bot logic. Reacts to message events for user interaction. The bot uses a local file (wxc_cc_bot.yml) to store state information (tokens) for authenticated users.

  • ngrok: This process is started during initialization of the bot. Ngrok is used to get a temporary public URL that is then redirected to the wx_cc_bot container.

    A public URI is needed so that the bot can set up webhooks to receive event notifications from Webex. This is needed both, to get notifications about new messages sent to the bot and call events.