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Experimental

New features in the TethysDash system often take initial shape in an experimental fashion. This page is intended to give a brief overview and status of any such current cases. As always, please get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions.

TethysDash Slack App

2023-02-13

A preliminary TethysDash App in Slack has been implemented. This is intended to facilitate some quick interactions with LRAUVs from within Slack. At the moment this is all exploratory. Feedback welcome.

The App is supported by the TethysDash backend and with a "bot" in Slack configured with permissions to access the email address of the user entering the commands. (The email address is the user ID in the TethysDash system.) TethysDash will verify the operator role to proceed with the execution of the command.

MBARI

The bot has been enabled in the MBARI Slack workspace. Though still preliminary, it is functional and can be used against real vehicles. You can also test it against the sim vehicle, for example, under your personal Slack channel. (Note that an actual simulator may not be running in the backend, but you can still issue commands.)

How to use

Using the Slash Command feature in Slack, you can start typing /te and see /tethysdash, the TethysDash App, in the list of suggestions:

You can enter /tethysdash help to get the possible commands that are recognized.

Note

The syntax after the /tethysdash prefix is very tentative.

Issuing a command

The current syntax for issuing a command is: 

/tethysdash cmd <vehicleName> <command>
For example, to issue restart logs to the sim vehicle: 
/tethysdash cmd sim restart logs

Note

There's not yet a way to indicate scheduling or an associated note. Syntax suggestions for this (and in general) are welcome.

Sending a note

The current syntax for sending a note is: 

/tethysdash note <vehicleName> [bug] <text of the note>
For example: 
/tethysdash note sim All working great!

Signing in/off as PIC/OC

Since signing in/off as PIC/On-Call actions are captured in 'note' events, you can, for example, sign in as PIC for the sim vehicle with: 

/tethysdash note sim Signing in as PIC

Your feedback 🤔

Assuming such an app is useful (but let us know if not!):

  • What other commands or queries could be considered?

  • "It would be especially interesting if something like schedule list put the output into the Slack channel!"

    • That's part of the general idea: have the bot also generate some form of notification back in Slack (in particular, a reply or set of replies in a thread) indicating the result or progress of the command.

  • Syntax suggestions, in particular, considering the need for:

    • optional arguments (so, need for quotes,...)
    • maybe something like !cmd ... to indicate one wants the result of the command back in Slack?

  • ...