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.