Simple Chatbot App for Jokes and Cat Images

This is a simple chatbot app that the users can ask for jokes and cat pictures. The jokes and cat pictures are taken from JokeAPI and TheCatAPI.

How to Run

This chatbot consists of a backend component utilizing Express.js and a frontend component utilizing Next.js.

The backend can be run from the project root directory:

1. Open a terminal in the project root directory.
2. Run npm install to install all dependencies.
3. Run npm run server.

The frontend can be run in a separate terminal in the /chatbot-app directory:

1. Open a terminal in the /chatbot-app directory.
2. Run npm install to install all dependencies.
3. Run npm run dev. (Disclaimer: This runs the Next.js app in a developer environment. For production-ready pipelines, this needs to be compiled into a smaller package and served by a web server instead.)

There are no environment variables setup needed. All parts are already hard-coded into the code.

For developmental purposes only

Hard-coding sensitive info into code is generally an unsafe method of running an app. So beware of using this code in a production pipeline!

Once the backend and frontend are running, you can access the chatbot through http://localhost:3000.

How to Use (not to be confused with how to run)

You can insert any text into the input field. However, the chatbot only responds to the keywords joke and cat. Other than those, it will return a message telling the user it does not understand the request.

This is a Development In Progress

This chatbot is a playground for me to discover a bit of frontend technology and I may add new functionality from time to time. If there are any queston, feel free to reach out to me on Github!