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Creating a Google Hangout Bot with Express and Node.js

Time Required: 20 minutes.
Technologies: Express, Node.js, JavaScript.
Prerequisites:

  • Basic knowledge of Express, Node.js, and JavaScript.
  • Node.js and npm are installed.

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.

Outline
  1. Environment setup.
  2. Get bot to respond to pings.
  3. Send bot-initiated messages.
  4. Deploy.
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.

Responding to Pings

The bot will respond to pings through a HTTP POST endpoint. Create one with express:

app.post('/', function(req, res) {
  console.log('someone pinged @');

  if (req.body.type === 'MESSAGE') {
    return res.json({
      text: 'sleeping...'
    });
  }
});

The bot will respond with the text: ‘sleeping…’.

Synchronously responding to messages simply requires us to return a response to Google. The downside to this is the 30 second time limit before Google no longer accepts responses to the request. For instance, this would be a problem if you were building some kind of reminder app; the bot wouldn't be able to synchronously respond after 30 seconds. This is where async responses come in.

Bot-initiated Messages

To show this, we will have our bot post to a chat room every 1 minute.

Sending async messages to Google API requires a Service Account for authentication. Once authenticated, we can make a POST request to a Google API URL that will create a message.

So first, create a Google Service Account following these steps. Take the downloaded JSON file and put it in the root directory of your project. Here, we renamed it to googlekeys.json:

const gkeys = require('./googlekeys.json');

We will be making POST requests using Unirest:

const unirest = require('unirest');

Now generate a JWT that will be used in our POST request:

function getJWT() {
  return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
    let jwtClient = new google.auth.JWT(
      gkeys.client_email,
      null,
      gkeys.private_key, ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.bot']
    );

    jwtClient.authorize(function(err, tokens) {
      if (err) {
        console.log('Error create JWT hangoutchat');
        reject(err);
      } else {
        resolve(tokens.access_token);
      }
    });
  });
}

Here is our function for posting messages. ROOM-ID can be found in the URL of the hangout chat room page i.e.: https://chat.google.com/u/0/room/{ROOM-ID}

function postMessage(count) {
  return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
      getJWT().then(function(token) {
          unirest.post('https://chat.googleapis.com/v1/spaces/' + {ROOM-ID} + '/messages')
              .headers({
                  "Content-Type": "application/json",
                  "Authorization": "Bearer " + token
              })
              .send(JSON.stringify({
                  'text': 'Hello! This is message number ' + count,
              }))
              .end(function(res) {
                  resolve();
              });
      }).catch(function(err) {
          reject(err);
      });
  });
}

Finally, add the code that will repeat our post every minute.

const timer = require('timers');

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

  let count = 0;
  timer.setInterval(function() {
      postMessage(count += 1);
  }, 60000);
});
Deploy

Expose your local server to public (we used ngrok).

Login to developer console. Create a new project, and enable Hangout Chat API. Under configuration, set:

  • status: live
  • bot name (this is how you will add and ping the bot)
  • avatar
  • description
  • functionality: rooms
  • connection settings - bot URL:
  • permission: everyone in your domain

Restart your local server, and that’s it! Make sure you have your bot added to the chat room, and you can ping it by sending @. The bot will also post to the chat room every minute.

There are a lot of different ways to further extend this bot, such as setting reminders/notifications, making to-do lists, displaying server logs, and interacting with API’s.

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