Skip to main content
Version: 1.5

Running Bottender with Custom Servers

The Concept

bottender dev and bottender start are the default npm scripts generated by create-bottender-app.

Thus, You can find those lines in your generated package.json:

  "scripts": {
    "dev": "bottender dev",
    "start": "bottender start",

When executing one of bottender dev or bottender start command, under the hood, it sets up a default express server for Bottender and load index.js from the project root directory as the root action of the chatbot.

To run Bottender with the custom HTTP server, you need to prepare an HTTP server, delegate the webhook routes to Bottender, and modify the setting of package.json.

Express

Creating a New Project with Custom Express Server

If you want to have a clean project with the custom express, you could start from this example to develop your project. There are four steps you could follow to create your project:

  1. Download the code from this example.
  2. Run yarn or npm install command to install all dependencies.
  3. Fill the .env file with correct value.
  4. Run yarn dev or npm run dev to start the dev server.

If you want to have the folder structure we recommend, you could start with create-bottender-app command and migrate it to the custom express server by following the migration instructions below.

Migrating an Existing Project to Custom Express Server

Suppose that you already have a project built from create-bottender-app, and you want to develop some additional APIs using express server. In this case, you need to write a custom express server and delegate all chatbot's webhook requests to the Bottender app.

To achieve that, you could follow the instructions, as shown below:

  1. Run yarn add express body-parser nodemon or npm install express body-parser nodemon command to install dependencies we need.
  2. Create a server.js file in the root directory of the project and copy the following code into it.
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const express = require('express');
const { bottender } = require('bottender');

const app = bottender({
  dev: process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production',
});

const port = Number(process.env.PORT) || 5000;

// the request handler of the bottender app
const handle = app.getRequestHandler();

app.prepare().then(() => {
  const server = express();

  const verify = (req, _, buf) => {
    req.rawBody = buf.toString();
  };
  server.use(bodyParser.json({ verify }));
  server.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false, verify }));

  // your custom route
  server.get('/api', (req, res) => {
    res.json({ ok: true });
  });

  // route for webhook request
  server.all('*', (req, res) => {
    return handle(req, res);
  });

  server.listen(port, (err) => {
    if (err) throw err;
    console.log(`> Ready on http://localhost:${port}`);
  });
});
  1. Modify scripts in the package.json to nodemon server.js and node server.js instead:
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "nodemon server.js",
    "start": "node server.js",

That's all you need to do, and you can have you bot hosting on the custom express server!

Koa

Creating a New Project with Custom Koa Server

If you want to have a clean project with the custom koa, you could start from this example to develop your project. There are four steps you could follow to create your project:

  1. Download the code from this example.
  2. Run yarn install command to install dependencies.
  3. Fill the .env file with correct value.
  4. Run yarn dev to start server.

If you want to have the folder structure we recommend, you could start with create-bottender-app command and migrate it to the custom koa server by following the migration instructions below.

Migrating an Existing Project to Custom Koa Server

Suppose that you already have a project built from create-bottender-app, and you want to develop some additional APIs using koa server. In this case, you need to write a custom koa server and delegate all chatbot's webhook requests to the Bottender app.

To achieve that, you could follow the instructions, as shown below:

  1. Run yarn add koa koa-router koa-bodyparser nodemon or npm install koa koa-router koa-bodyparser nodemon command to install dependencies we need.
  2. Create a server.js file in the root directory of the project and copy the following code into it.
const Koa = require('koa');
const Router = require('koa-router');
const bodyParser = require('koa-bodyparser');
const { bottender } = require('bottender');

const app = bottender({
  dev: process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production',
});

const port = Number(process.env.PORT) || 5000;

const handle = app.getRequestHandler();

app.prepare().then(() => {
  const server = new Koa();

  server.use(bodyParser());
  server.use((ctx, next) => {
    ctx.req.body = ctx.request.body;
    ctx.req.rawBody = ctx.request.rawBody;
    return next();
  });

  const router = new Router();

  router.get('/api', (ctx) => {
    ctx.response.body = { ok: true };
  });

  router.all('*', async (ctx) => {
    await handle(ctx.req, ctx.res);
    ctx.respond = false;
  });

  server.use(router.routes());

  server.listen(port, (err) => {
    if (err) throw err;
    console.log(`> Ready on http://localhost:${port}`);
  });
});
  1. Modify scripts in the package.json to nodemon server.js and node server.js instead:
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "nodemon server.js",
    "start": "node server.js",

That's all you need to do, and you can have you bot hosting on the custom koa server!

Restify

Creating a New Project with Custom Restify Server

If you want to have a clean project with the custom restify, you could start from this example to develop your project. There are four steps you could follow to create your project:

  1. Download the code from this example.
  2. Run yarn install command to install dependencies.
  3. Fill the .env file with correct value.
  4. Run yarn dev to start server.

If you want to have the folder structure we recommend, you could start with create-bottender-app command and migrate it to the custom restify server by following the migration instructions below.

Migrating an Existing Project to Custom Restify Server

Suppose that you already have a project built from create-bottender-app, and you want to develop some additional APIs using restify server. In this case, you need to write a custom restify server and delegate all chatbot's webhook requests to the Bottender app.

To achieve that, you could follow the instructions, as shown below:

  1. Run yarn add restify nodemon or npm install restify nodemon command to install dependencies we need.
  2. Create a server.js file in the root directory of the project and copy the following code into it.
const restify = require('restify');
const { bottender } = require('bottender');

const app = bottender({
  dev: process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production',
});

const port = Number(process.env.PORT) || 5000;

const handle = app.getRequestHandler();

app.prepare().then(() => {
  const server = restify.createServer();

  server.use(restify.plugins.queryParser());
  server.use(restify.plugins.bodyParser());

  server.get('/api', (req, res) => {
    res.send({ ok: true });
  });

  server.get('*', (req, res) => {
    return handle(req, res);
  });
  server.post('*', (req, res) => {
    return handle(req, res);
  });

  server.listen(port, (err) => {
    if (err) throw err;
    console.log(`> Ready on http://localhost:${port}`);
  });
});
  1. Modify scripts in the package.json to nodemon server.js and node server.js instead:
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "nodemon server.js",
    "start": "node server.js",

That's all you need to do, and you can have you bot hosting on the custom restify server!