Program that sends a message to a WIM slack channel containing the current day's featured holiday and a randomly chosen "Bruce Quote". The information is gathered from the "holidays20xx.json" and "BruceQuotes.txt" files, which should be uploaded to an AWS S3.
AWS account with access to S3, CloudWatch, and Lambda functions.
Go to https://aws.amazon.com/ to setup
To test this program on a local system, run the following command to install the required Node libraries:
npm install
To begin, create a Slack Bot (https://api.slack.com/apps) and create a Webhook for the specific Slack channel you want the message to go to (Under the "Incoming Webhooks" in the Features section). Take this URL and copy it into the 'webHookURL' constant at the beginning of 'index.js' in this project.
Next, go to your AWS S3 and create a new bucket (remember what you name the bucket), and upload the following files to this bucket: all of the "holidays20xx.json" files, and "BruceQuotes.txt". Then, copy the name of your S3 bucket exactly into the 'bucketName' constant at the beginning of the 'index.js' file.
The last two constants you will need to set are the 'AWSAccessKey' and 'AWSSecretKey' constants, which are used to access your S3. You can create a new access key and secret key at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/home#/users.
To see if everything works, run this:
node index.js
A message should be sent to the Slack channel that your Webhook URL is directed to.
Begin by creating a new Lambda function (name is something like 'bruceBot' and for runTime use 'Node.js 12.x'). IMPORTANT: Under the 'Configuration' header for this function, make sure you edit the 'Timeout' option to at least 10 seconds.
Since this project is over 3MB when zipped, this built in code editor in Lambda will not display the files we need to change. To get around this, we need to make a layer that includes all of the Node.js modules used. First, in a file explorer, select the 'node_modules' folder in this project and zip this folder (Right click and Send to -> Compressed Zip Folder). Next, on the sidebar of the AWS Lambda, go to 'Layers' under the Additional Resources header.
Create a new Layer, name it 'node_modules', and upload the zip folder you just created (it should also be called 'node_modules'). Select 'Node.js 12.x' for a compatible runtime.
Back in the 'bruceBot' lambda function, scroll all the way down to the 'Layers' section and click Add a Layer. Then select Custom Layer, and choose the 'node_modules' layer that we just created. We are now almost done: we just need to upload the actual script to the Lambda code section.
For this final step, in the lambda function Code Source viewer, delete the auto-created 'index.js' file. Next, in a File Explorer directed to this project's directory, create a new folder (call it 'code') and copy the following files/folders from this project into that folder: the 'bin' folder and 'obj' folder (if these exist), 'package-lock.json', 'package.json', and 'index.js'. Now with this 'code' folder with all of those files in it, create a zip folder. Back in the Code Source viewer, on the upper right hand side, use the 'Upload from' button to upload the new 'code' zip folder. The last thing to do is to move all of these uploaded files (the 'bin' folder and 'obj' folder (if these exist), 'package-lock.json', 'package.json', and 'index.js') out of the 'code' folder in the Code Source environment file viewer, and move them so they are directly under the base 'bruceBot' folder. This is so the function will be able to reach the index.js script.
To make sure everything works, run a test of the function by clicking the 'Test' button and following the directions.
Inside the 'index.js' file, there are instructions to remove a section of code and replace it with a provided chunk that is currently commented out (this should be easy to find, it's right at the top of the file). Follow those instructions inside the Lambda Code Source viewer in your Lambda function so that the uploaded 'index.js' file will run the program upon receiving an event from AWS.
If you want this function to run at certain times, it's helpful to use AWS CloudWatch. Go to https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/home and under 'Events', create a New Rule. Select the 'Schedule' radio button, and click 'Add target', and select your lambda function. Under the scheduler, you can choose to run the function at a fixed rate, or enter a CRON expression. (For example, the CRON expression to run the script every weekday at 8:00AM is '0 14 ? * MON-FRI *'). Add this new Event and presto, your lambda function will run at the scheduled times.
- Kip Sullivan - Volunteer Developer - USGS Web Informatics & Mapping
This project is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal License - see the LICENSE.md file for details
In the spirit of open source, please cite any re-use of the source code stored in this repository. Below is the suggested citation:
This project contains code produced by the Web Informatics and Mapping (WIM) team at the United States Geological Survey (USGS). As a work of the United States Government, this project is in the public domain within the United States. https://wim.usgs.gov
- Based off the original idea of Hans Vraga
- Hat tip to anyone who's code was used
- Inspiration Note
- This project authored by the USGS WIM team
- WIM is a team of developers and technologists who build and manage tools, software, web services, and databases to support USGS science and other federal government cooperators.
- WIM is a part of the Upper Midwest Water Science Center.