hubot-github-identity

hubot-github-identity

Using any Hubot scripts to interact with GitHub?

Most likely those scripts authenticate as a single user. So when Hubot calls the GitHub API it's as that user, and not the person who said the command.

This isn't the ideal solution if you want multiple users using these scripts.

Our solution is to let people identify themselves using a private web based form served by Hubot.

People add their GitHub username and API token so they can identify themselves and have Hubot run commands on their behalf when using scripts for GitHub.

Installation

• Add "hubot-github-identity": "*" to your package.json file.
• Add hubot-github-identity to your external-scripts.json file.

Note: your Hubot should be using the built in Express server.

Configuration

This package requires a Redis instance.

The URL for the Redis instance should be set in any of the following environment variables:

• REDISTOGO_URL
• REDISCLOUD_URL
• REDIS_URL
• BOXEN_REDIS_URL

If none are supplied it fallsback to using redis://localhost:6379. If you are already using the redis-brain.coffee script, you should already have this environment variable configured.

You will also need to set the URL for your Hubot instance:

• HUBOT_HOSTNAME

This should be the hostname including port number your Hubot is serving from. Do not include a trailing slash.

For example: http://myawesomehubot.example.org:8888

Usage

Once you've got hubot-github-identity added, when you launch Hubot a simple page will be available at http://{hostname}:{port}/github/identity.

It will prompt you to enter your GitHub username followed by a GitHub API token you would like Hubot to use on your behalf.

Note: these tokens are stored in Redis, but not in the brain data.

Once you've added your GitHub username and token you will be able to tell Hubot in your chat what your GitHub username is, this is so Hubot knows which chat user you are.

Tom Bell > hubot i am tombell

Hubot > Tom Bell: Ok, you are tombell on GitHub.

Now in your scripts you will be able to get a GitHub API token for a user by using the robot.identity.findToken() function.

Note: this function is added during script loading, you should not assume the function exists until all scripts have finished loading.

robot.respond /make some github api request for me/i, (res) ->
  robot.identity.findToken res.envelope.user.name, (err, token) ->
    # ...

The err parameter will contain an object with error details if there is an error. The type property will tell you what the error relates to.

• type: 'redis' there was an issue with communicating with Redis
• type: 'github user' the user hasn't told Hubot their GitHub username

See Also

Scripts utilizing hubot-github-identity.

• hubot-github-issues - https://github.com/tombell/hubot-github-issues

If you build a script package that integrates with hubot-github-identity, open an issue and we'll add you to the list above.