Creating an Example App

The development tools provide a command to quickly scaffold a new Rocket.Chat App. Simply run rc-apps create and a small form will ask you to provide information about the app you are developing, like its name (in this example we will call it liftoff), app's description, and developer info. This information will be placed in a file called app.json in the project's root folder.

You can check the app-schema.json file for all the detailed information and fields allowed in the app description file, the basic structure is similar to this:

{
    "id": "88ce358a-5277-4356-a601-f519574303a4",
    "version": "0.0.1",
    "requiredApiVersion": "^1.4.0",
    "iconFile": "icon.png",
    "author": {
        "name": "rocket.chat",
        "homepage": "rocket.chat",
        "support": "rocket.chat"
    },
    "name": "liftoff",
    "nameSlug": "liftoff",
    "classFile": "LiftoffApp.ts",
    "description": "Tells if it is time to lift off"
}

Start Developing

The basic creation of an App is based on extending the App class from the Rocket.Chat Apps definition library. Your class also has to implement the constructor and optionally the initialize function, for more details on those check the App definition documentation.

In this example, we already have our main file called LiftoffApp.ts that was generated when we first created our project:

import {
    IAppAccessors,
    ILogger,
} from '@rocket.chat/apps-engine/definition/accessors';
import { App } from '@rocket.chat/apps-engine/definition/App';
import { IAppInfo } from '@rocket.chat/apps-engine/definition/metadata';
​
export class LiftoffApp extends App {
    constructor(info: IAppInfo, logger: ILogger, accessors: IAppAccessors) {
        super(info, logger, accessors);
    }
}

Now let's add some functionality to it

Adding a Slashcommand

A Slashcommand is a way to call the app installed in Rocket.Chat. You app can have multiple slashcommands and subcommands. In our example, we will add the liftoff slashcommand and it will be called like this by the user inside the chat:

/liftoff

First, we create a new directory called commands in our project's root and create a file called liftoff.ts. You can copy the file's content:

import {ISlashCommand, SlashCommandContext} from '@rocket.chat/apps-engine/definition/slashcommands';
import {IModify, IRead} from '@rocket.chat/apps-engine/definition/accessors';
import {App} from '@rocket.chat/apps-engine/definition/App';
​
export class LiftoffCommand implements ISlashCommand {
    public command = 'liftoff';
    public i18nDescription = 'Tells the user if it is time to liftoff';
    public i18nParamsExample = '';
    public providesPreview = false;
​
    constructor(private readonly app: App) {}
​
    public async executor(context: SlashCommandContext, read: IRead, modify: IModify): Promise<void> {
        const message = 'Time to lift off!';
​
        const messageStructure = await modify.getCreator().startMessage();
        const sender = context.getSender(); // the user calling the slashcommand
        const room = context.getRoom(); // the current room
​
        messageStructure
        .setSender(sender)
        .setRoom(room)
        .setText(message);
​
        await modify.getCreator().finish(messageStructure);
    }
}

You can learn more about organising complex slash commands in our Sub-command pattern recipe

Registering the slashcommand

After adding our slashcomamnd logic, we have to register the slashcommand in out app by extending its configuration:

import {
    IAppAccessors,
    ILogger,
    IConfigurationExtend,
} from '@rocket.chat/apps-engine/definition/accessors';
import { App } from '@rocket.chat/apps-engine/definition/App';
import { IAppInfo } from '@rocket.chat/apps-engine/definition/metadata';
​
import { LiftoffCommand } from './commands/liftoff';
​
export class LiftoffApp extends App {
    constructor(info: IAppInfo, logger: ILogger, accessors: IAppAccessors) {
        super(info, logger, accessors);
    }
​
    protected async extendConfiguration(configuration: IConfigurationExtend): Promise<void> {
        await configuration.slashCommands.provideSlashCommand(new LiftoffCommand(this));
    }
}

We first had to import the Liftoff class and then register an instance of using the provideSlashCommand function. We pass the app's instance (this) so our slashcommand have access to all the functionalities of the app.

Updating the app

If you want to, for example, change the message sent to the room from Time to lift off! to Lift off now!, you have to simply save the modifications and run:

rc-apps deploy --url http://localhost:3000 --username <your_username> --password <your_password> --update

The app will be updated and by sending /liftoff, the message will reflect the change you have made in the app.

Testing the App

Now that you have your App ready, you can test it before submitting it.

To test your app, you need a Rocket.Chat server running locally on your machine and an admin user in it.

See Installing Rocket.Chat for Developing to run Rocket.Chat in develop mode. Enable Apps development mode by navigating to Administration > General then scroll down to Apps and click on the True radio button over the Enable development mode.

or run it in preview mode with docker using the command:

docker run -it --rm -p 3000:3000 -v `pwd`/rocketdb:/var/lib/mongodb rocketchat/rocket.chat.preview

Having the server running, simply run inside the app project's directory:

rc-apps deploy --url http://localhost:3000 --username user_username --password user_password

Where:

http://localhost:3000 is your local server URL (if you are running in another port, change the 3000 to the appropriate port)

user_username is the username of your admin user.

user_password is the password of your admin user.

If you want to update the app deployed in your Rocket.Chat instance after making changes to it, you can run:

rc-apps deploy --url http://localhost:3000 --username user_username --password user_password --update