Action Aliases¶

Action Aliases are a simplified and more human readable representation of actions in StackStorm. They are useful in text based interfaces, notably ChatOps.

Action Alias Structure¶

Action aliases are content like actions, rules, and sensors. They are defined in YAML files and deployed via packs, e.g.:

---
name: "remote_shell_cmd"
pack: "examples"
action_ref: "core.remote"
description: "Execute a command on a remote host via SSH."
formats:
  - "run {{cmd}} on {{hosts}}"

In the above example remote_shell_cmd is an alias for the core.remote action. The supported format for the alias is specified in the formats field. A single alias can support multiple formats for the same action.

Property description¶

name: unique name of the alias.
action_ref: the action that is being aliased.
formats: possible options for users to invoke the action. Typically entered in a textual interface supported by ChatOps.

Location¶

Action Aliases are supplied in packs as YAML files:

packs/my_pack$ ls
actions  aliases  rules  sensors

Each alias is a single YAML file containing the alias definition.

Listing¶

To list all currently registered action aliases, use:

st2 action-alias list

Loading¶

Aliases are not automatically loaded when a pack is registered. To load all aliases use:

st2ctl reload --register-aliases

Removing¶

To remove an action alias, use:

st2 action-alias delete {ALIAS}

After removing or modifying existing aliases, you may need to restart the st2chatops service, or you may see old or duplicate commands still showing up on your chatbot.

Supported formats¶

Aliases support the following format structures:

Basic¶

formats:
  - "run {{cmd}} on {{hosts}}""

If the user entered run date on localhost via a ChatOps interface, the aliasing mechanism would interpret this as cmd=date hosts=localhost. The action core.remote would then be called with the parameters:

parameters:
    cmd: date
    hosts: localhost

Since core.remote accepts multiple hosts, you can also use a comma-separated list: run date on 10.0.10.1,10.0.10.2.

With default¶

Using this example:

formats:
  - "run {{cmd}} {{hosts=localhost}}"

In this case, the query has a default value assigned which will be used if no value is provided by the user. Therefore, a simple run date instead of run date 10.0.10.1 would result in assigning the default value, in a similar manner to how Action default parameter values are interpreted.

For default inputs like JSON, the following pattern can be applied:

formats:
  - "run {{thing={'key': 'value'}}}"

It is therefore possible to pass information to a runner like a HTTP header as a default value using this pattern.

Regular Expressions¶

You can use regular expressions in the format string:

formats:
  - "(run|execute) {{cmd}}( on {{hosts=localhost}})?[!.]?"

They can be as complex as you want, just exercise reasonable caution as regexes tend to be difficult to debug. If you think you have a problem that can be solved by a regex…well now you have two problems to solve.

Key-Value Parameters¶

Using this example:

formats:
  - "run {{cmd}} on {{hosts}}"

Users can supply extra key value parameters like run date on localhost timeout=120. In this case even though timeout does not appear in any alias format it will still be extracted and supplied for execution. In this case the action core.remote would be called with the parameters:

parameters:
    cmd: date
    hosts: localhost
    timeout: 120

Additional ChatOps Parameters Passed¶

An execution triggered via ChatOps will contain variables such as action_context.api_user, action_context.user and action_context.source_channel. api_user is the user who runs the ChatOps command from the client and user is the StackStorm user configured in hubot. source_channel is the channel in which the ChatOps command was entered.

If you are attempting to access this information from inside an ActionChain, you will need to reference the variables through the parent, e.g. action_context.parent.api_user

Multiple Formats in a Single Alias¶

A single alias file allows multiple formats to be specified for a single alias e.g.:

---
name: "st2_sensors_list"
pack: "st2"
action_ref: "st2.sensors.list"
description: "List available StackStorm sensors."
formats:
    - "list sensors"
    - "list sensors from {{ pack }}"
    - "sensors list"

The above alias supports the following commands:

!sensors list
!list sensors
!sensors list pack=examples
!list sensors from examples
!list sensors from examples limit=2

Note: formats are matched in the exact order they are specified in a YAML array, and must be ordered from the most specific (first) to the most generic (last). deploy {{ pack }} to {{ host }} should come before deploy {{ pack }}, otherwise everything after deploy will always be mapped to pack, ignoring more specific format strings that come after.

“Display-representation” Format Objects¶

By default, every format string is exposed in Hubot help as-is. This is not always desirable in cases where you want to make a complicated regex, have ten very similar format strings to “humanize” the input, or need to hide one of the strings for any other reason.

In this case, instead of having a string in formats, you can write an object with a display parameter (a string that will show up in help) and a representation list (matches that Hubot will actually look for):

formats:
  - display: "run {{cmd}} on {{hosts}}"
    representation:
      - "(run|execute) {{cmd}}( on {{hosts=localhost}})?[!.]?"
      - "run remote command {{cmd}} on {{hosts}}"

This works as follows:

the display string (run {{cmd}} on {{hosts}}) will be exposed via the !help command.

strings from the representation list ((run|execute) {{cmd}}( on {{hosts=localhost}})?[!.]? regex, and run remote command {{cmd}} on {{hosts}} string) will be matched by Hubot.

You can use both strings and display-representation objects in formats at the same time:

formats:
  - display: "run {{cmd}} on {{hosts}}"
    representation:
      - "(run|execute) {{cmd}}( on {{hosts=localhost}})?[!.]?"
      - "run remote command {{cmd}} on {{hosts}}"
  - "ssh to hosts {{hosts}} and run command {{cmd}}"
  - "OMG st2 just run this command {{cmd}} on ma boxes {{hosts}} already"

Acknowledgment Options¶

Hubot will acknowledge every ChatOps command with a random message containing the StackStorm execution ID and a link to the Web UI. This message can be customized in your alias definition:

ack:
  format: "acknowledged!"
  append_url: false

The format parameter will customize your message, and the append_url flag controls the Web UI link at the end. It is also possible to use Jinja in the format string, with actionalias and execution comprising the Jinja context:

ack:
  format: "Executing `{{ actionalias.ref }}`, your ID is `{{ execution.id[:2] }}..{{ execution.id[-2:] }}`"

The enabled parameter controls whether the message will be sent. It defaults to true. Setting it to false will disable the acknowledgment message:

ack:
  enabled: false

Result Options¶

Similar to ack, you can configure result to disable result messages or set a custom format so that Hubot will output a nicely formatted list, filter strings, or switch the message text depending on execution status:

result:
  format: |
    Ran command *{{execution.parameters.cmd}}* on *{{ execution.result | length }}* hosts.

    Details are as follows:
    {% for host in execution.result -%}
        Host: *{{host}}*
        ---> stdout: {{execution.result[host].stdout}}
        ---> stderr: {{execution.result[host].stderr}}
    {%+ endfor %}

To disable the result message, you can use the enabled flag in the same way as in ack.

Plaintext Messages (Slack and HipChat)¶

Result messages tend to be quite long, and Hubot will utilize the extra formatting capabilities of some chat clients: Slack messages will be sent as attachments, and HipChat messages are formatted as code blocks. While this is a good fit in most cases, sometimes you want part or all of your message in plaintext. Use {~} as a delimiter to split a message into a plaintext/attachment pair:

result:
  format: "action completed! {~} {{ execution.result }}"

In this case “action completed!” will be displayed in plaintext, and the execution result will follow as an attachment.

{~} at the end of the string will display the whole message in plaintext.

Passing Attachment API parameters (Slack-only)¶

Slack formats ChatOps output as attachments, and you can configure the API parameters in the result.extra.slack field.

---
name: "kitten"
pack: "kitten"
description: "Post a kitten picture to cheer people up."
action_ref: "core.noop"
formats:
  - "kitten pic"
ack:
  enabled: false
result:
  format: "your kittens are here! {~} Regards from the Box Kingdom."
  extra:
    slack:
      image_url: "http://i.imgur.com/Gb9kAYK.jpg"
      fields:
        - title: Kitten headcount
          value: Eight.
          short: true
        - title: Number of boxes
          value: A bunch.
          short: true
      color: "#00AA00"

Everything that’s specified in extra.slack will be passed as-is to the Slack Attachment API.

Note: parameters in extra support Jinja templating, and you can calculate the values dynamically:

[...]
formats:
  - "say {{ phrase }} in {{ color }}"
result:
  extra:
    slack:
      color: "{{execution.parameters.color}}"
[...]

Support for other chat providers is coming soon, and of course you are always welcome to contribute! See the example below for hacking on extra.

Testing and extending alias parameters¶

Action Aliases have a strict schema, and normally you have to modify it if you want to introduce new parameters to Hubot. However, extra (see above) is schema-less and can be used for hacking on hubot-stackstorm without having to modify StackStorm source code.

For example, you might want to introduce an audit parameter that would make Hubot log executions of certain aliases into a separate file. You would define it in your aliases like this:

---
name: "remote_shell_cmd"
pack: "examples"
action_ref: "core.remote"
description: "Execute a command on a remote host via SSH."
formats:
    - "run {{cmd}} on {{hosts}}"
extra:
  audit: true

Then you can access it as extra.audit inside the Hubot StackStorm plugin. A good example of working with extra parameters is the Slack post handler in hubot-stackstorm.

A sample alias ships with StackStorm. Please checkout st2/contrib/examples/aliases/remote_shell_cmd.yaml.