Create a bot with the Bot Builder SDK for JavaScript

• 10/15/2018
• 2 minutes to read
• Contributors
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This quickstart walks you through building a bot by using the Yeoman Bot Builder generator and the Bot Builder SDK for JavaScript, and then testing it with the Bot Framework Emulator.

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio Code
• Node.js
• Yeoman, which can use a generator to create a bot for you
• git
• Bot Framework Emulator
• Knowledge of restify and asynchronous programming in JavaScript

Create a bot

Open an elevated command prompt, create a directory, and initialize the package for your bot.

md myJsBots
cd myJsBots

Ensure your version of npm is up to date.

npm i npm

Next, install Yeoman and the generator for JavaScript.

npm install -g yo
npm install -g generator-botbuilder

Then, use the generator to create an echo bot.

yo botbuilder

Yeoman prompts you for some information with which to create your bot.

• Enter a name for your bot.
• Enter a description.
• Choose the language for your bot, either JavaScript or TypeScript.
• Choose the Echo template.

Thanks to the template, your project contains all of the code that's necessary to create the bot in this quickstart. You won't actually need to write any additional code.

Start your bot

In Powershell/Bash change directories to the one created for your bot, and start it by with npm start. At this point, your bot is running locally.

Start the emulator and connect your bot

1. Start the emulator.
2. Click the Open Bot link in the emulator "Welcome" tab.
3. Select the .bot file located in the directory where you created the project.

Send a message to your bot, and the bot will respond back with a message.

Next steps