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README

Cog2

This project is a work in progress under active heavy development. Follow for updates!

Cog2 is a Go re-implementation of Operable's Cog Slack Bot (Cog version 1, or Cog1), a chatbot framework designed from the ground up for chatops.

Cog brings the power of the command line to the place you collaborate with your team all the time -- your chat window. Its open-ended bundle support allows developers to implement functionality in the language of their choice, while powerful access control means you can collaborate around even the most sensitive tasks with confidence. A focus on extensibility and adaptability means that you can respond quickly to the unexpected, without your team losing visibility.

Rationale

Cog1 was originally designed as a distributed computation engine that was later rebranded as a chatops tool, and much of the original intent is reflected in its design, implementation, and featureset. As a result, many of Cog1’s features, however innovative, go largely unused, and the codebase has become difficult to extend and maintain. These difficulties are compounded by its implementation language -- Elixir -- which has few proficient developers.

The solution, which has been discussed for many months on the Cog Slack workspace, is to rewrite Cog from scratch in a more accessible language, such as Go, removing superfluous functionality and reducing complexity in the process.

This gives us the opportunity to consider and possibly redefine what Cog is meant to be. To choose the features that make sense, and to discard those that don’t. In this way, Cog2 can be described more as a “spiritual successor” to Cog1 than a faithful reimplementation: many things will change, others will cease to exist entirely.

Features

The primary goal of this project is reimplement in Go the core features of Cog that distinguish it from other chatops tools. Among the features are:

• define arbitrary command functionality in any programming language,
• package those commands into bundles that can be installed in Cog,
• allow a user to trigger commands through Slack or another chat provider and be presented with the output,
• execute triggered commands anywhere a relay is installed, using a tag-based targeting system,
• regulate the use of commands with a built-in authentication/authorization system,
• and record activity in an audit log.

This includes all of the high-level features listed in the Cog1 documentation.

Also in the works: a migration tool to allow users to migrate from Cog1 to Cog2.

Non-Goals

While some effort will be made to support existing functionality (such as Cog1 bundles), perfect compatibility is explicitly not guaranteed (however, a migration guide should be written eventually).

Cog2 design

A WIP design doc, including rough milestones (but not dates) can be seen here. Feel free to add questions or comments.

Status of this project

Active heavy development. The date that various milestones have been achieved are listed below. The number and focus of present and future milestones are subject to change.

• Project created: 27 December 2018
• Milestone 1: 7 January 2019
• Milestone 2: 21 January 2019
• Milestone 3: 24 January 2019
• Milestone 4: 17 March 2019
• Milestone 5: TBD
• Milestone 6: TBD
• Release candidate 1: TBD
• Release!: TBD

How to run

With Go installed, you can run (for testing) with: go run . start.

Note that you'll need a proper API key in the config first!