Flask-Based Chatbot Framework

This project details the design of a fairly rudimentary API server, that serves data to chat client endpoints through a Flask server.

Structure

.
+-- app/
|   +-- endpoints/
|   |   +-- __init__.py
|   |   +-- sample.py
|   +-- utils/
|   |   +-- __init__.py
|   |   +-- msteams_verify.py
|   +-- __init__.py
+-- config/
|   +-- #TODO
+-- tests/
|   +-- #TODO
+-- application.py
+-- run.py
+-- test.py
+-- requirements.txt

The app folder

The app folder contains three items:

1. An endpoints folder
2. A utils folder
3. __init__.py

The endpoints folder contains a number of python scripts, tied together in its __init__.py script. Each of these python scripts takes the form of sample.py, and provides an @api.route for the Flask server. Each .py file is imported at the end of the __init__.py file in this directory.

The utils folder contains an __init__.py file that imports the msteams script in this directory. Add any future helper scripts as an import into this __init__.py file.

The config folder

The config folder will contain environment variables in scripts used to configure various environments. This is on the TODO list for now.

The tests folder

The tests folder is currently unused, but will allow for future development of a test suite.

Other files

The five remaining files are used in configuring and running the application.

• application.py provides for quick deployment to an app service platform, like Azure App Service.
• test.py is incomplete - TODO
• run.py starts the server in a development mode. Use python run.py to start the server.
• When writing endpoints that use other python modules, add the new modules to requirements.txt