Help with last steps for flask-canopy-slack-herokuapp

Support
1

Hey all

I’m trying to deploy a Slack bot that uses the Canopy RAG system. The bot connects to Canopy by Pinecone for embedding and searching a database. I’ve developed a Flask app as middleware. It works locally, but I’m running into issues when deploying to Heroku.

The main issue is integrating the Canopy container with my Flask app for Heroku deployment. I managed to extract the Canopy container into the same directory as the Flask app, but I’m not sure how to start both Canopy and Gunicorn together when the app gets pinged from Slack.

Project Repository: GitHub - isorabins/slack_bot_the_truth_latest: slack bot with canopy
App url: https://thetruth-6332296f8065.herokuapp.com

What I’ve done:

  1. Developed and tested the Slack bot and Flask middleware locally.
    -been using “canopy start”, which I know is a dev server, but not sure how to set the start to use unicorn…
  2. Extracted the Canopy container into the same directory as the Flask app.
  3. Created a gunicorn_start.sh script to start both Canopy and Gunicorn.
  4. Encountered issues with the correct startup sequence and integration.

Questions

  1. How should I modify my gunicorn_start.sh script to start both Canopy and Gunicorn together on Heroku?

  2. What changes do I need to make in my app.py to ensure that Canopy starts when the Flask app gets pinged from Slack?

  3. What’s the correct URL to use for Canopy when it’s live in production on Heroku?

Env info:

Development Environment: macOS
Deployment Target: Heroku
Technologies: Slack Bot, Flask, Canopy (Pinecone), Heroku

I really appreciate any help! Fairly new to all this, so excited to get this app live.

Thank you!

2

Instead of running Canopy as a separate server, you should consider integrating it directly into your Flask application:

  • Import and initialize Canopy components in your Flask app.
  • Use Canopy’s ChatEngine or other components directly in your Flask routes. Here’s a basic example of how you might structure your Flask app with Canopy:
from flask import Flask, requestfrom canopy.chat_engine import ChatEnginefrom canopy.models.data_models import UserMessage
app = Flask(__name__)
# Initialize Canopy componentschat_engine = ChatEngine.from_config("path/to/your/config.yaml")
@app.route('/slack/events', methods=['POST'])def slack_event():    # Process Slack event    # Use Canopy's ChatEngine to generate response    user_message = UserMessage(content="Your message from Slack")    response = chat_engine.chat([user_message])    # Send response back to Slack    return "OK", 200

Deployment Considerations

For Heroku deployment:

  • Ensure all Canopy dependencies are in your requirements.txt file.
  • Use a Procfile to specify how to run your Flask app:
web: gunicorn app:app
  • Set up necessary environment variables in Heroku for your Pinecone API key and other configurations.

Correct URL for Canopy in Production

Since you’re integrating Canopy directly into your Flask app, you won’t need a separate URL for Canopy. Your Flask app’s URL will be the entry point for all interactions.