Microsoft-Teams custom bot : error while sending a reply

Question

I'm currently working on a Custom bot for Microsoft-Teams; followed the steps described in Ms doc( https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/custombot ) but did not managed yet to properly send a reply on any request.

This is what my webhook handler receives when I send datas on a channel in Ms-teams, with @AgentSmith (AgentSmith is the name of my bot) :

{
"type": "message",
"id": "1503406241867",
"timestamp": "2017-08-22T12:50:41.978Z",
"localTimestamp": "2017-08-22T14:50:41.978+02:00",
"serviceUrl": "https://smba.trafficmanager.net/emea-client-ss.msg/",
"channelId": "msteams",
"from": {
    "id": "29:1nxaNQeM7AaQumVmUmPaS4K0gMHZD-FtA_gnJ9xFqZXG5nlpRnsIv-uWeAWQeuKKEQXEEXbwhK4LG1oqvqinGJg",
    "name": "John Doe"
},
"conversation": {
    "isGroup": true,
    "id": "19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype;messageid=1503406241867",
    "name": null
},
"recipient": null,
"textFormat": "plain",
"attachmentLayout": null,
"membersAdded": [],
"membersRemoved": [],
"topicName": null,
"historyDisclosed": null,
"locale": null,
"text": "<at>AgentSmith</at> test",
"speak": null,
"inputHint": null,
"summary": null,
"suggestedActions": null,
"attachments": [
    {
        "contentType": "text/html",
        "contentUrl": null,
        "content": "<div><span itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"http://schema.skype.com/Mention\" itemid=\"0\">AgentSmith</span> test</div>",
        "name": null,
        "thumbnailUrl": null
    }
],
"entities": [
    {
        "type": "clientInfo",
        "locale": "fr-FR",
        "country": "FR",
        "platform": "Web"
    }
],
"channelData": {
    "teamsChannelId": "19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype",
    "teamsTeamId": "19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype",
    "channel": {
        "id": "19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype"
    },
    "team": {
        "id": "19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype"
    },
    "tenant": {
        "id": "c41d586a-6ec1-4ce3-89ed-54a2f844c8e1"
    }
},
"action": null,
"replyToId": null,
"value": null,
"name": null,
"relatesTo": null,
"code": null}

The previous json is then sent to our platform, which computes a simple text response.

Once that response received from our platform, I just make a POST request on the following endpoint :

https://smba.trafficmanager.net/emea-client-ss.msg/v3/conversations/19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype;messageid=1503406241867/activities/1503406241867

with the body including the computed response

{
"type": "message",
"id": "1503406241867",
"timestamp": "2017-08-22T14:01:31.352Z",
"localTimestamp": "2017-08-22T16:01:31.352+02:00",
"serviceUrl": "https://smba.trafficmanager.net/emea-client-ss.msg/",
"channelId": "msteams",
"from": {
    "name": "AgentSmith",
    "id": "fake string as I don t know the id"
},
"conversation": {
    "isGroup": true,
    "id": "19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype;messageid=1503406241867",
    "name": null
},
"recipient": {
    "id": "29:1nxaNQeM7AaQumVmUmPaS4K0gMHZD-FtA_gnJ9xFqZXG5nlpRnsIv-uWeAWQeuKKEQXEEXbwhK4LG1oqvqinGJg",
    "name": "John Doe"
},
"textFormat": "plain",
"attachmentLayout": null,
"membersAdded": [],
"membersRemoved": [],
"topicName": null,
"historyDisclosed": null,
"locale": null,
"text": "Désolé, je n'ai pas compris",
"speak": null,
"inputHint": null,
"summary": null,
"suggestedActions": null,
"attachments": [],
"entities": [
    {
        "type": "clientInfo",
        "locale": "fr-FR",
        "country": "FR",
        "platform": "Web"
    }
],
"channelData": {
    "teamsChannelId": "19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype",
    "teamsTeamId": "19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype",
    "channel": {
        "id": "19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype"
    },
    "team": {
        "id": "19:a438309226204de48783042c5bfd3bd9@thread.skype"
    },
    "tenant": {
        "id": "c41d586a-6ec1-4ce3-89ed-54a2f844c8d0"
    }
},
"action": "message",
"replyToId": "1503406241867",
"value": null,
"name": null,
"relatesTo": null,
"code": null}

The request fails as follow :

error: 0.4.0: send message error: statusCode:403, statusCodeMessage:Forbidden, 
error: {
  "error": {
      "code":"ServiceError",
      "message":"not member of thread"
  }
}

Any help would be appreciated. Can't see what is wrong with the reply message I built.

By the way, isn't that weird that the recipient on the object received by my webhook handler is null?

Answer 1

Sorry for the late reply - didn't see this when it was posted.

You do not (and cannot) post to https://smba.trafficmanager.net/emea-client-ss.msg/ ...

You can only respond to the HTTP post to your endpoint.

That is, Teams does a POST to you, and your response contains the message object.

Here's an echo bot in node.js that illustrates the concept.

const util = require('util');

var http = require('http');
var PORT = process.env.port || process.env.PORT || 8080;

http.createServer(function(request, response) { 
    var payload = '';
    request.on('data', function (data) {
        // console.log("Chunk size: %s bytes", data.length)
        payload += data;
    });

    request.on('end', function() {
        try {
            response.writeHead(200);
            var receivedMsg = JSON.parse(payload);
            var responseMsg = '{ "type": "message", "text": "You typed: ' + receivedMsg.text + '" }';
            response.write(responseMsg);
            response.end();
        }
        catch (err) {
            response.writeHead(400);
            return response.end("Error: " + err + "\n" + err.stack);
        }
    });

}).listen(PORT);

console.log('Listening on port %s', PORT);