How can I get my bot to ignore conversation until it is addressed directly?

Question

I want to add my bot to a Slack channel. But I want it to ignore conversation until it is addressed directly, e.g.:

me: hi!
me: hi!
me: @bot hi!
bot: why hello t         


        

Answer 1

The dumbest way would be to use MessageController.cs. The first thing you do in the Post method there would be to check that the Activity contains "@bot".

if (activity.Text.Contains("@bot") {
    //do your normal stuff
}
else {
    return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK); //ignore message
}