This walkthrough goes into a deep dive explanation of OAuth, what it is used for, and how to work with it. This will help when creating Webex Teams Integrations, which exclusively use OAuth for authorization.

Building Cisco Webex Teams bots and integrations that need access to behind-the-firewall resources is a challenge that regularly faces developers building Webex applications for internal use. Webex API events are delivered with an HTTP push model that requires your bot to be hosted on a web server that’s available on the public internet, but not all IT infrastructure allows for public web servers.

Do you develop bots for Cisco Webex Teams (formerly Cisco Spark)? Do you ever wish that there was a way to create a set of regression tests to ensure that your bot behaves consistently given the same input? Or maybe you wish that there was a way to speed up your iterative development/debug process when you are working on a bot response to a complex set of input?

Whether you are new to bot building or not, there is typically a big question you ask yourself whenever you start a new bot project: “How will I build it?”

You may recall Don Henley of Eagles fame, who crafted one of the best rock albums of all time, “Building the Perfect Beast.” At the time, Rolling Stone magazine referred to it as “meticulously crafted and programmed.” The title song’s refrain goes:

“And now the day is come

Soon he will be released

Glory hallelujah!

We’re building the perfect beast.”

So indulging this metaphorical theme (thanks, Don), if you will, how do you, as a Cisco Spark Developer, embark on “Building the Perfect Bot?”

When you’re in a Spark space with a bot and you want to stop getting notifications from that bot, you can simply leave the space or remove the bot from the space. As a developer, your bot even can subscribe to a membership webhook to get notified when someone leaves or removes your bot, allowing you to handle subscription status updates in your backend.