How to Run a Delta Chat Bot

To run a Delta Chat bot you don’t need to be a programmer or experienced sysadmin. Basically any computer will do, as long as it can connect to your email provider. For testing purposes that may well be your local machine. :)

Requirements

The details depend on the bot of your choice. Please read its documentation (see below for links).

In general you need:

• a connection to the internet,
• an installation of the programming language that the bot uses (e.g. Python or NodeJS),
• and some additional software packages (don’t be afraid, the installation won’t be complicated).

Some bots will have those dependencies packaged into a container image, then you need only the possibility to run a container (e.g. with docker or podman).

Configuration

Each Delta Chat bot requires at least one email address and a password — after all a Delta Chat bot is basically just an special purpose email client.

There might be additional preparations steps described in the bot’s documentation, please don’t forget to read it.

Tip: Choose an email provider that doesn’t filter, block or delay incoming or outgoing emails. With good email providers, messages reach the chat partners within a few seconds, bad providers can cause long delays.

Running

If you don’t use a container image you’ll start the bot by executing a command. In order to keep it running when you log out, maybe use a tool like tmux.

Bots

We started to collect runnable bots in our forum, have a look!

The forum is also the right place to ask questions or request help in case of problems. Don’t hesitate to post :)