Installing Microsoft Bot Framework on Ubuntu with Node.js
Introduction
Microsoft Bot Framework helps developers build bots using many popular chat services for example Slack or Google Assistant. There is no need to create a separate bot for each of the chat services you want to support. You can even develop your own connector if one is not supported yet. Microsoft does provide many services on their Azure cloud to help deploy your bot however their tools and everything else need to create and build a complete bot is opensource. Also since Node.js is supported we can develop our bot on Linux.
The rest of this article will show you how to quickly get started with developing a bot using the Microsoft Bot Framework on Ubuntu. I will using Node.js however when writing this article Java and Python have preview releases available to try.
Prerequisites
Node.js
~$ sudo apt-get install nodejs
~$ sudo apt-get install npm
Yeoman and bot generator for JavaScript.
~$ sudo npm install -g yo generator-botbuilder
BotFramework-Emulator
Download the Emulator https://github.com/Microsoft/BotFramework-Emulator/releases/tag/v4.3.3
Set execute permission
~$ chmod 700 BotFramework-Emulator-4.3.3-linux-x86_64.AppImage
Create your bot
~$ mkdir myBot
~$ cd myBot
~$ yo botbuilder
Fill in information Yeoman prompts
Starting our bot
Make sure the emulator is running
Run the file BotFramework-Emulator file you previously downloaded
~$ ./BotFramework-Emulator-4.3.3-linux-x86_64.AppImage &
Start you bot
~$ cd myBot
~$ cd thebklabs
~$ npm start
Click on “Open Bot” button from the emulator
Locate .bot file in our bot folder
Start talking to your bot
