Build your own Bot – Get Started with these Resources!

You can build and connect intelligent bots to interact with your users naturally wherever they are with Microsoft Bot Framework — from your website or app to text/SMS, Skype, Slack, Facebook Messenger, Office 365 mail, Microsoft Teams and other cool services.

Here’s a short overview of what you need to know to get started:

I put together a list of links I found very useful to get started with developing your very own bot.

• Try out bots that are already available in Skype today, e.g. Skyscanner or Murphy
  https://blogs.skype.com/news/2016/08/03/skype-says-hello-to-new-bots/
• Getting Started with Bots Online Video Course http://aka.ms/botcourse
• Home for Bot Framework Developers https://dev.botframework.com/
• Bot Framework Documentation https://docs.botframework.com/en-us/downloads/
• Bot Directory https://bots.botframework.com/
• Bot Builder SDK source code on GitHub http://github.com/microsoft/botbuilder
• Bot Samples on GitHub http://github.com/microsoft/botbuilder-samples
• Bot Builder C# samples on GitHub https://github.com/Microsoft/BotBuilder/tree/master/CSharp/Samples
• Bot Builder node.js samples on GitHub https://github.com/Microsoft/BotBuilder/tree/master/Node/examples
• Bot Builder npm package for node.js https://www.npmjs.com/package/botbuilder
• Bot Framework Emulator https://docs.botframework.com/en-us/tools/bot-framework-emulator/
• Download Git for Windows https://git-scm.com/download/win

Also, there are a couple of great resources in the Cognitive Services context that are useful working with bots:

• LUIS (Language Understanding Intelligent Service) http://luis.ai
• QnA Maker http://qnamaker.ai
• Microsoft Cognitive Services http://microsoft.com/cognitive-services

I’d like to say a special Thank You to my fellow colleagues Christopher Harrison (@GeekTrainer) and Ryan Volum for putting together the following online course in the Microsoft Virtual Academy:

Getting Started with Bots http://aka.ms/botcourse

This course is a great way to start off with creating your first bot — and it’s fun to watch, too

Best,
Sebastian

Technical Evangelist at Microsoft

P.S.: Follow me on Twitter, I’m tweeting as @seklenk.