Anfon

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  Anfon - the email bot for Slack

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  it's really this simple to connect your personal email account to the Anfon bot and begin sending email directly from Slack!

Inspiration

Although we wish we could communicate with everyone in our lives via Slack, the reality is we often still need to use old-school email. I wanted to make a bot that would essentially be an email client living in Slack to allow emailing directly using a personal email account without switching to another app.

What it does

After authorizing the bot to manage emails from you gmail account, simply send a DM to @anfon specifying the recipient, the subject and the email body - and vóila!

How I built it

Using node.js and AWS services incuding API Gateway, Lambda, and DynamoDB. Makes use of the new Slack Events API, as well as the Gmail API.

Challenges I ran into

Having never used API Gateway, Lambda or DynamoDB before now, there was a ton to learn in a short period of time.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I accomplished exactly what I set out to create in about 2 weeks in my spare time- all while using technologies I never touched before.

What I learned

A ton about various AWS services and the general AWS ecosystem.

What's next for Anfon

Plenty more to do! e.g. - Allowing sending email attachments by uploading files to Slack; subcribing to email threads and being notified of replies to your emails.

Built With

• api-gateway
• dynamodb
• gmail-api
• lambda
• node.js
• slack-api