VOIDBOT

A custom Slack bot built with Python using Socket Mode. Created during Hack Club Stardance as my first project in bot development and server automation.

Try it out in the #voidbot-demo channel on the Hack Club Slack.

Commands

Command	Description
/vt-ping	Health check — confirms the bot is online
/vt-about	Info about VOIDBOT and its creator
/vt-voidtune	Displays the VOIDTUNE module status and planned CLI flags

How to run

git clone https://github.com/otzpt/VOIDBOT
cd VOIDBOT
pip install -r requirements.txt

Create a .env file: SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=xoxb-...

SLACK_APP_TOKEN=xapp-...

Then run:

python main.py

Tech stack

• Python 3
• slack-bolt — Slack app framework
• Socket Mode — no public URL required
• Hosted on Hack Club Nest (24/7 Linux container)

Challenges

The biggest challenge was hosting. VOIDBOT uses Socket Mode which doesn't expose an HTTP port, but Hugging Face Spaces (original host) expects a web server to be running. I solved this by running a lightweight HTTP health-check thread alongside the bot's WebSocket connection. Later migrated to Hack Club Nest for a permanent solution.

What I learned

• How Slack bots work (Socket Mode vs HTTP)
• How to handle slash commands with slack-bolt
• How to keep a process running 24/7 on a Linux server using tmux
• SSH key generation and remote server setup