This tutorial will go over how to build a bot that will respond to pings (i.e. @), and send messages to a chat room. On a high level, the bot will run on an express server, and receive pings via an HTTP endpoint. Responses to pings will be sent synchronously through a payload in the HTTP response, while bot-initiated messages will be sent asynchronously using the Google Hangout Chat API.

Environment Setup

Create a new project with the file ‘app.js’.

Open command line/terminal, and navigate to your project directory. Run ‘npm init’, and press enter until package.json is created. Next, install the following dependencies:

• express: npm install express --save
• body-parser:  npm install body-parser --save
• googleapis: npm install googleapis --save
• unirest:  npm install unirest --save

In ‘app.js’, let’s setup our server:

const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const { google } = require('googleapis');

const app = express();

app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({
  extended: false
}));

app.use(bodyParser.json());

app.listen(8100, function() {
  console.log('App listening on port 8100.');
});

Running ‘node app.js’ will now create a local server on port 8100.

#express #nodejs #hangout #google