Devlog #2 — Another Interesting Problem- After getting the basic Slack commands working, I started preparing the project for deployment. That introduced a completely different side of development that I hadn’t really dealt with before: Git, GitHub, SSH, environment variables, and servers. One of the first things I learned was why .env files shouldn’t be pushed to GitHub. My Slack tokens are required for the bot to work, but they’re also credentials that shouldn’t be sitting inside a public repository. I added .env to .gitignore and learned that deploying an application means recreating those environment variables securely on the server. Git also gave me a few headaches. My local repository and GitHub repository weren’t completely in sync, so my first push was rejected. Instead of forcing the push, I had to understand what Git was actually telling me and pull the remote changes before pushing again. Now I’m moving on to Hack Club Nest. The goal is to get SmileBot running on a real server instead of depending on my laptop and terminal being open. The interesting part of this project so far is that the Slack commands themselves weren’t the hardest part. Getting the entire development workflow around them working has taught me just as much. Next step: SSH into Nest, deploy SmileBot, and get it running 24/7.(P.S I just applied, waiting for approval!!)