My first slack bot!

Ship #1

@NamanS on My first slack bot! · 20 days ago

What did you make?
I built F1 Pulse Bot, a Slack bot that provides live Formula 1 information using slash commands. Users can check the next race, view the current driver standings, get a random F1 driver, and verify the bot is online with a ping command.

What was challenging?
The biggest challenge was deployment. I had to learn how to host the bot on a Linux server using Nest, configure environment variables, register Slack slash commands correctly, and debug systemd service issues to keep the bot running reliably.

What are you proud of?
I'm proud that I successfully deployed the bot so it runs continuously on a real server instead of just on my computer. It also integrates with a live F1 API, so the information it provides is always up to date.

What should people know so they can test your project?
The bot is used entirely through Slack slash commands. Reviewers should add the app to a Slack workspace (or join the provided test workspace) and try commands like /f1-pulse-bot-next-race, /f1-pulse-bot-standings, and /f1-pulse-bot-random-driver while the bot is running.

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@NamanS on My first slack bot! · 20 days ago

39m 34s logged

Today I got my Slack bot fully working end-to-end on a real server instead of just local testing. I started with only the /f1-pulse-bot-ping command working, which confirmed the Slack Bolt setup was fine, but the other commands weren’t responding.

I figured out the issue was in Slack’s dashboard, as slash commands need to be manually registered before Slack will actually send requests to the bot. After adding the missing commands there, everything started working.

Next I worked on deployment using a Nest Linux container. I ran into several systemd issues related to working directories and startup paths, which took some debugging to understand. Once fixed, I got the bot running as a proper background service that auto-restarts and stays online.

Now the bot is fully functional and uses a live F1 API to fetch next race details, driver standings, and random driver data directly inside Slack.

Overall, the main takeaway was understanding how deployment and platform configuration are just as important as writing the code itself.