BarnabAI - Slack Chatbot for PR Management

BarnabAI is an intelligent Slack assistant that helps developers manage GitHub pull requests directly from Slack. It uses AI to understand natural language commands and execute GitHub actions on your behalf. It was heavily vibe-coded, use at your own risks.

Features

• 🤖 Intelligent Intent Detection: Uses AI to understand what you want to do with PRs
• 👤 Per-User GitHub Authentication: Each user connects their own GitHub account
• 💬 Conversational Interface: Talk to the bot naturally in Slack
• 🎯 PR Actions: Merge, comment, approve, get info, create PRs, run specs, and more
• 🔔 Extensible Notification System: AI-powered notifications with per-user settings via the Slack App Home Tab. Ships with CI failure analysis and PR review digest. Fork-friendly — add custom notification types by dropping a class in app/services/notifications/types/.

Prerequisites

• Ruby 4.0.1
• PostgreSQL
• A Slack workspace where you can install apps
• A GitHub account
• A Gemini API key (or another AI provider, feel free to implement yours!)

Setup Guide

1. Clone and Install Dependencies

git clone <repository-url>
cd barnabAI
bundle install

2. Database Setup

Create and configure your PostgreSQL databases. The app uses separate databases for the main data, cache, queue, and Action Cable:

# Set in your .env file:
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:password@localhost:5432/barnabai_development
CACHE_DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:password@localhost:5432/barnabai_development_cache
QUEUE_DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:password@localhost:5432/barnabai_development_queue
CABLE_DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:password@localhost:5432/barnabai_development_cable

# Run migrations
bin/rails db:create && bin/rails db:migrate

3. Slack App Setup

The repo includes a ready-made app manifest at slack_app_manifest.json that configures all scopes, events, Socket Mode, Home Tab, and interactivity in one shot.

3.1 Create the Slack App from Manifest

1. Go to https://api.slack.com/apps?new_app=1
2. Choose "From an app manifest"
3. Select your workspace
4. Paste the contents of slack_app_manifest.json (switch to JSON mode if needed)
5. Before confirming, replace YOUR_HOST in the redirect_urls with your actual hostname
6. Click Create

3.2 Collect Tokens

1. Go to OAuth & Permissions → click Install to Workspace → copy the Bot User OAuth Token (starts with xoxb-) — this is your SLACK_BOT_TOKEN
2. Go to Basic Information → under App-Level Tokens, click Generate Token and Scopes → name it (e.g., "Socket Mode Token") → add scope connections:write → copy the token (starts with xapp-) — this is your SLACK_APP_TOKEN

4. GitHub OAuth App Setup

4.1 Create a GitHub OAuth App

1. Go to your GitHub account → Settings → Developer settings → OAuth Apps
2. Click New OAuth App
3. Fill in:
   • Application name: BarnabAI
   • Homepage URL: APP_PROTOCOL://APP_HOST (e.g. https://example.com)
   • Authorization callback URL: APP_PROTOCOL://APP_HOST/github/oauth/callback (e.g. https://example.com/github/oauth/callback)
4. Click Register application
5. Copy the Client ID and generate a Client Secret

5. GitHub Webhook Setup

The notification system and PR tracking rely on receiving GitHub webhook events. You need to configure a webhook on each repository (or organization) you want the bot to monitor.

1. Go to your GitHub repository → Settings → Webhooks → Add webhook
   • For organization-wide coverage, go to your Organization Settings → Webhooks instead
2. Fill in:
   • Payload URL: APP_PROTOCOL://APP_HOST/github/webhooks (e.g. https://example.com/github/webhooks)
   • Content type: application/json
   • Secret: (optional but recommended — not yet enforced by the app)
3. Under Which events would you like to trigger this webhook?, select Send me everything
   • The app processes pull_request events (for PR tracking and assignee updates) and forwards all events to the notification dispatcher. Sending all events ensures current and future notification types work correctly.
4. Make sure Active is checked, then click Add webhook

Why "Send me everything"? The notification framework is extensible — built-in types listen to check_suite and pull_request_review events, and custom notification types added via forks may listen to any event. Sending all events avoids having to reconfigure the webhook each time a new notification type is added.

6. Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the root directory using .env.example as a template:

cp .env.example .env

Then fill in the values:

Variable	Description
APP_HOST	Your app's hostname (e.g. example.com or localhost:3000)
APP_PROTOCOL	https for production, http for local dev
DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string for the main database
CACHE_DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string for the cache database
QUEUE_DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string for the queue database
CABLE_DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string for the Action Cable database
SLACK_APP_TOKEN	App-level token from Socket Mode setup (starts with xapp-)
SLACK_BOT_TOKEN	Bot User OAuth Token from OAuth & Permissions (starts with xoxb-)
SLACK_BOT_USER_ID	Bot's Slack user ID — run bin/rails slack:test_auth to retrieve it
GITHUB_CLIENT_ID	GitHub OAuth App client ID
GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET	GitHub OAuth App client secret
LLM_PROVIDER	LLM provider to use (currently only gemini is supported)
GEMINI_API_KEY	Your Gemini API key
GEMINI_MODEL	Gemini model to use (e.g. gemini-2.5-flash)
ACTIVE_RECORD_ENCRYPTION_PRIMARY_KEY	ActiveRecord encryption primary key
ACTIVE_RECORD_ENCRYPTION_DETERMINISTIC_KEY	ActiveRecord encryption deterministic key
ACTIVE_RECORD_ENCRYPTION_KEY_DERIVATION_SALT	ActiveRecord encryption key derivation salt

You can generate the ActiveRecord encryption keys with:

bin/rails db:encryption:init

7. Run the Application

# Start the Rails server
bin/rails server

# In another terminal, start the background job processor (for Solid Queue)
bin/rails solid_queue:start

The app will be available at http://localhost:3000

Starting Socket Mode:

You can start it either ways:

bin/rails slack:connect

Or from the Rails console:

bin/rails console
# Then in the console:
app_token = ENV.fetch("SLACK_APP_TOKEN")
Slack::SocketConnector.start(app_token: app_token)

You should see connection logs indicating the WebSocket is connected.

8. Connect Your GitHub Account

Users need to connect their GitHub account to perform actions:

1. In Slack, mention the bot or send a message in a PR thread
2. The bot will prompt you to connect your GitHub account
3. Click the link to authorize GitHub access
4. You're all set!

Note: Each user must connect their own GitHub account. Actions are performed on behalf of the user who sent the message.

Usage

Basic Workflow

1. Create a PR thread link: When a PR is created, create a Slack thread and link it to the PR (this can be automated with webhooks)
2. Talk to the bot: Send messages in the PR thread
3. The bot understands: Natural language commands like "What files changed on this specific PR?"

Supported Intents

The bot can detect and execute many intents, take a look at actions for more information

Token Encryption

All sensitive tokens (Slack bot tokens, GitHub tokens) are encrypted using ActiveRecord::Encryption before storage. The three ACTIVE_RECORD_ENCRYPTION_* environment variables are required for this to work.