Create a Serverless Slackbot with AWS Lambda and Python

Serverless Computing may sound like a scary topic, but with the rise of AWS Lambda and mature tools supporting it - it's more approachable than ever. In this newline course, we're going to learn what serverless technology is and isn't, and why it belongs in your developer toolbox. We'll see that for certain common projects - like custom chat bot creation - AWS Lambda really shines for it's simplicity, affordability, and ability to integrate with the wider AWS ecosystem.

Some developers love using serverless tech because it helps them save money, scale quickly, and deliver on reliability goals. While all of those things are possible with Lambda (especially cost savings which are common - but certainly not guaranteed), it's the development agility and reduction of operations overhead that drives my love for the service. It's a relief to be able to get right into the code, without worrying about configuring operating systems, deploying containers, or scaling clusters. Serverless on Lambda gives developers the resources needed to write, deploy, and maintain production-ready software - all without significant operational overhead.

In true newline-fashion, we'll get rolling with a practical application right away. RPG players rejoice - we're creating a fully functional, dice-rolling chat bot for Slack! While the example bot will be for Slack, the same idea can be easily adapted to create a bot for Telegram, Discord, or nearly any other chat service with a bot API.

We will be using Python 3 for this project, but it's worth noting that AWS Lambda works with other common languages and runtimes, including NodeJS, Java, ruby, go, and .NET. The basic mechanisms of creating, testing, and deploying your Lambda do not vary significantly based on your runtime choice.

By the end of this course you'll:

• Deploy a Slack Bot that runs on AWS Lambda
• Understand how to keep your AWS account secure
• Be able to deploy custom Lambda functions
• Understand serverless architecture and how it works