Generator-botscaffold NPM

Generator-botscaffold

This Yeoman Generator creates the scaffolding of a Node.js app leveraging the Microsoft Bot Framework, LUIS and Application Insights, helping you focus on delivering a great conversational experience rather than the setup process.

You will need to provide pointers to some Azure services during the setup process, so look at the comprehensive Setup Guide as you walk through the generator. That document is long with screen-shots, so if you're familiar with Azure try the TL;DR Guide which is much shorter.

Features

This app delivers the skeleton of a bot, and includes the following:

a .gitignore, preventing sensitive data (contained in .vscode\launch.json) being published to a public repo
a .vscode\launch.json file containing your keys and passwords as environment variables, so you can run your bot locally
a package.json with all the requirements for Bot Framework, LUIS and Application Insights
an app.js Bot you can run locally in VS Code or remotely as an Azure Web App

Getting started

You will need:

VS Code installed to edit the app.js, and run the Bot locally in debug mode. It's available for Windows, Mac and Linux
The Bot Framework Emulator
Node.js v4.0.x or better
yo installed: npm install -g yo
The botscaffold generator: npm install -g generator-botscaffold

Running the Generator

Create a directory to hold your bot's code, and cd into it
Run: yo botscaffold
Follow along in the Setup Guide or the TL;DR version
Test your Bot with the Bot Framework Emulator

Why?

I've been building a lot of Node.js apps using the Microsoft Bot Framework. This generator scaffolds a new app with a common structure and template files, saving a ton of time.