Data - a Bolt-JS Slack Chatbot

Overview

This is an AI-powered Slack chatbot built on the Bolt JS framework. The bot includes canned responses and falls back to a language model for messages that don't match a predefined pattern. Chat is powered by Ollama (default, self-hosted) or Gemini; image generation uses Gemini. You can customize the bot's personality and responses to suit your needs.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+ (LTS).

• A Redis installation to persist the bot's conversation memory. On Ubuntu:

  sudo apt -y install redis-server

• A chat backend:

  • Ollama (default) — a running Ollama instance with a model pulled (e.g. ollama pull llama3.1). Point the bot at it with OLLAMA_HOST.
  • or Gemini — set CHAT_BACKEND=gemini and supply a GEMINI_API_KEY.

• A GEMINI_API_KEY is required for the /image slash command regardless of which chat backend you use.

Installation

0. Create a new Slack App

• Go to https://api.slack.com/apps
• Click Create App
• Choose a workspace
• Copy the manifest.yaml contents into the input box
• Update the name and display name settings
• Click Create

Once the app is created click Install to Workspace Then scroll down in Basic Info and click Generate Token and Scopes with all three scopes enabled.

1. Setup environment variables

For Linux/Mac

The easiest way is to copy .env.example to .env and fill it in; the bot loads it via dotenv. Or export them in your shell:

# Replace with your bot and tokens
export SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=<your-bot-token> # from the OAuth section
export SLACK_APP_TOKEN=<your-app-level-token> # from the Basic Info App Token Section
export SLACK_BOT_USER_NAME=<your-bot-username> # must match the short name of your bot user
export GEMINI_API_KEY=<your-gemini-api-key> # for /image, and for chat if CHAT_BACKEND=gemini
export BOT_PERSONALITY="Your custom bot personality prompt here" # Optional: Set a custom personality for your bot

# Optional: choose and configure the chat backend (defaults to local Ollama)
# export CHAT_BACKEND=ollama
# export OLLAMA_HOST=http://localhost:11434
# export OLLAMA_MODEL=llama3.1

For Windows PowerShell

# Replace with your bot and tokens
$env:SLACK_BOT_TOKEN = "xoxb-your-bot-token"
$env:SLACK_APP_TOKEN = "xapp-your-app-token"
$env:SLACK_BOT_USER_NAME = "Data" # Change to match your bot's name
$env:GEMINI_API_KEY = "your-gemini-api-key"
$env:BOT_PERSONALITY = "Your custom bot personality prompt here" # Optional: Set a custom personality for your bot

# Optional: Set Redis URL if you're using a custom Redis instance
# $env:REDIS_URL = "redis://localhost:6379"

# Start the bot
npm start

2. Setup your local project

# Clone this project onto your machine
git clone https://github.com/scarolan/data.git

The bot's personality is now configurable via the BOT_PERSONALITY environment variable. You can set this in your script or directly in your environment:

# Example of customizing the bot's personality
export BOT_PERSONALITY="You are a helpful assistant with a cheerful disposition. You love to tell jokes and answer questions clearly and concisely."

If you don't set the BOT_PERSONALITY variable, the bot will use a default Star Trek "Data" personality.

# Change into the project
cd data

# Install the dependencies
npm install

3. Start the chatbot application

npm run start

4. Test

Go to the installed workspace and DM your new bot, or @-mention it in a channel.

Direct mention example (in a channel or DM):

@Data help

Slash command example (image generation):

/image An image of Lt. Commander Data and his cat

5. Deploy to production

You'll need a Linux server, container, or application platform that supports nodejs to keep the bot running. Slack has a tutorial for getting an app running on the Glitch platform: https://api.slack.com/tutorials/hello-world-bolt

Image Generation

The bot generates images with Gemini (Nano Banana) through the /image slash command.

How Image Generation Works

When using the /image slash command:

1. The bot acknowledges your request and shows an ephemeral "generating" message
2. Image generation happens asynchronously in the background
3. When complete, the image is posted directly to the channel

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
SLACK_BOT_TOKEN	Yes	Your Slack bot token from the OAuth section
SLACK_APP_TOKEN	Yes	Your Slack app-level token (Socket Mode)
SLACK_BOT_USER_NAME	Yes	Must match the short name of your bot user
GEMINI_API_KEY	Yes	Used for /image; also for chat when CHAT_BACKEND=gemini
CHAT_BACKEND	No	ollama (default) or gemini
OLLAMA_HOST	No	Ollama endpoint (default: http://localhost:11434)
OLLAMA_MODEL	No	Ollama chat model (default: gemma4:31b)
GEMINI_CHAT_MODEL	No	Gemini chat model (default: gemini-3-flash-latest)
GEMINI_IMAGE_MODEL	No	Override the default image model
BOT_PERSONALITY	No	Custom personality prompt for your bot
REDIS_URL	No	Custom Redis URL (default: redis://localhost:6379)
MEMORY_TTL_HOURS	No	Conversation memory lifetime in hours (default: 24)

See .env.example for a copy-pasteable template.