Make it easier to find custom bot modules when using zulip-botserver

I don't have a specific proposal, but probably some combination of documenting PYTHONPATH and adjusting how we search for bot modules is well worth doing to make it easier to help folks who are not deeply familiar with Python get bots running successfully. This thread has discussion https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/92-learning/topic/bot.20basics/near/1068769.

The first step for this issue is coming up with specific proposals for how to improve the implementation or documentation.

I saw this and wondered if at least for our packaged bots the registration implementation which I started working on in #517 may be useful?

Can I work on this

@b-thebest

@b-thebest There is no firm plan for going about this yet, so as Tim mentioned we likely want a proposal for fixing it first - I'd suggest discussing ideas in #integrations on chat.zulip.org.

@PIG208

@PIG208 do you think #708 resolved this? I guess we can leave this option open until wethe documentation feels good for this workflow.

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I’m still working on this issue. I submitted draft PR #925 and am awaiting
feedback on the proposed documentation scope. I’m available to address
review comments.

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@Hedger3

@Hedger3 I already submitted PR #925 for the custom bot-loading documentation, and it is ready for review. I’m still available to address feedback. Could we coordinate our scope to avoid duplicating work?

@ahmedforge

Hey @ahmedforge, sorry for the late reply! No overlap I think: #933 only changes the "Could not load bot module" error in zulip-run-bot, no docs.

I've opened #933 for the zulip-run-bot side of this. It has two commits:

Fills in the bot name in the --provision error, which printed a literal '{}'.
Makes the "Could not load bot module" error say where it looked (a file at that path, bots/<name>/<name>.py among the bundled bots, and a module importable from PYTHONPATH), and suggests passing the path to the bot's .py file. With -r, it gets a separate registry message.

Both have tests in test_run.py. I reproduced the original problem first with a copy of helloworld at ~/mybot/mybot.py: running it by name fails even from inside ~/mybot, while passing the full path works.

I posted this plan in the chat thread a little while ago but haven't heard back yet, so feedback on the approach is welcome here or on the PR.

Thanks for clarifying! That sounds complementary to the documentation in #925. I’ll keep my PR focused on the botserver documentation.

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Make it easier to find custom bot modules when using zulip-botserver #636

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Make it easier to find custom bot modules when using zulip-botserver #636

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neiljp commented on Nov 24, 2020

b-thebest commented on Dec 4, 2020

neiljp commented on Dec 4, 2020

timabbott commented on Jul 29, 2021

avijitdas126 commented on Feb 1, 2025

zulipbot commented on Feb 1, 2025

i-naeem commented on Mar 27, 2025

zulipbot commented on Mar 27, 2025

zulipbot commented on Dec 31, 2025

Jami436 commented on Feb 1, 2026

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ahmedforge commented on Oct 18, 2026

Hedger3 commented on Oct 27, 2026

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ahmedforge commented on Oct 28, 2026

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