Transponster — Audio Transcriber Bot for Slack

Because every PM needs a vibe-coding project that's not good enough for production but gets the job done nevertheless.

This is a Slack bot that turns audio or video into transcribed text file using ElevenLabs API. For all of this to work, you will need to set up Slack, ElevenLabs, Google Drive, and then the bot itself.

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🧵 Slack Setup

1. Create a Slack App:

   • Go to Slack API and create a new app: "Create New App" → "From scratch"
   • Select the workspace where you have permissions.

2. Configure OAuth & Permissions:

   • In the OAuth & Permissions section, add the following scopes:

     Bot Token Scopes

     • channels:history
     • chat:write
     • files:read
     • files:write
     • groups:history
     • mpim:history
     • users:read

     User Token Scopes

     • files:read

   • Still under OAuth & Permissions, click "Install App".

   • Then, obtain the Bot User OAuth Token (these start with xoxb-).

   • Then, under Basic Information section, note your Signing Secret.

3. Event Subscriptions:

   • Enable Event Subscriptions.
   • Set the Request URL to your public endpoint (e.g., https://your-domain.com/slack/events).
   • Subscribe to the file_shared event.
   • Save your changes.

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🧬 ElevenLabs Setup

1. Sign Up & API Key:
   • Visit ElevenLabs and create an account.
   • Generate your API key from your dashboard.

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☁️ Google Drive Integration

Transponster can automatically upload your transcripts as Word documents (.docx) to a shared Google Drive. Each user gets their own folder inside the shared drive, and every transcript is saved there for easy access and sharing.

What the bot does with Google Drive:

• Creates a shared drive (if not already present) named Transponster.
• Creates a personal folder for each Slack user (by display name) inside the shared drive.
• Uploads every transcript as a .docx file to your folder, so you can always find your files in Drive.
• Shares a direct link to the file and your folder in Slack after processing.

Google Cloud Setup

1. Create a Google Cloud Project & Service Account:

   • Go to Google Cloud Console.
   • Create a new project (or use an existing one).
   • Enable the Google Drive API for your project.
   • Create a Service Account with the Editor role (or at least permission to manage files in Drive).
   • Generate a JSON key for the service account and download it.

2. Share the Shared Drive with the Service Account:

   • In Google Drive, create a shared drive named Transponster (or use an existing one).
   • Share the drive with your service account's email (found in the JSON key) and give it full access.

3. Set Up the Environment Variable:

   • Copy the entire contents of your service account JSON key.
   • In your .env file, add:

     GOOGLE_CREDENTIALS_JSON='{"type": "service_account", ...}'
     

     (Paste the JSON as a single line, escaping quotes as needed.)

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🤖 Bot Setup

1. Clone the Repository:

   git clone https://github.com/danielbilyk/Transponster.git
   cd Transponster
   

2. Create Virtual Environment & Install Dependencies:

   python3 -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate    # For Windows use: venv\Scripts\activate
   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

3. Configure Environment Variables:

   • Ensure your .env file includes:

   SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=xoxb-your-slack-bot-token
   SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET=your-slack-signing-secret
   ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=your-elevenlabs-api-key
   GOOGLE_CREDENTIALS_JSON='{"type": "service_account", ...}'
   
   # Optional: Set a channel for the bot to post a startup message
   SLACK_STARTUP_CHANNEL=C0XXXXXXX
   

4. Run the Bot:

   uvicorn bot:api --host 0.0.0.0 --port 3000
   

   The bot will start, and you'll see logs both in your terminal and in bot.log.

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🌐 Local Development

To develop locally, you need to expose your local server to the internet so that Slack can send events to your bot. I suggest using Ngrok.

1. Run your bot server first:

   In one terminal, start the bot:

   uvicorn bot:api --host 0.0.0.0 --port 3000
   

2. Use Ngrok:

   • Install ngrok if you haven't already.

   • In a separate terminal window, run:

     ngrok http 3000
     

   • Ngrok will provide you with a public URL (e.g., https://xxxxxxxx.ngrok.io).

3. Configure Slack Event Subscriptions:

   • In Slack's Event Subscriptions settings, set the Request URL to:

     https://xxxxxxxx.ngrok.io/slack/events
     

   • Replace xxxxxxxx with your actual ngrok subdomain.

This setup allows you to test your bot locally while Slack sends events to your exposed endpoint.

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🐳 Deployment

1. Build the Docker Image

   From the project root (where Dockerfile is located), run:

   docker build -t transponster-bot .
   

2. Create a .env File

   Make sure you have a .env file containing:

   SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=xoxb-your-slack-bot-token
   SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET=your-slack-signing-secret
   ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=your-elevenlabs-api-key
   GOOGLE_CREDENTIALS_JSON='{"type": "service_account", ...}'
   
   # Optional: Set a channel for the bot to post a startup message
   SLACK_STARTUP_CHANNEL=yor-slack-startup-channel
   

3. Run the Container

   Map port 3000 from the container to the host, load your .env, and ensure the container restarts automatically:

   docker run -d \
     --name transponster-container \
     --env-file .env \
     -p 3000:3000 \
     -v /path/on/host/bot.log:/app/bot.log \
     --restart=always \
     transponster-bot
   

4. Confirm It’s Running

   • Check container logs:

   docker logs -f transponster-container
   

   • If you need a public HTTPS endpoint (for Slack), set up a reverse proxy (e.g., Apache/Nginx) pointing to port 3000.

   You can then configure Slack to send requests to your server’s address or domain, forwarding to port 3000 if needed.

   https://your-domain.tld/slack/events