Enable/disable external probots from each repository

In my organization we have a probot that uses some other external probots. The probot is enabled at the organization level so that all repositories can use it.

The problem with such setup is that repositories cannot enable/disable an specific probot unless the probot has support for that. I’m wondering if that’s something probot could support. The idea that I had in mind was that repositories could contain a settings file such as:

# .github/probots.yml
- autolabeler
- triager

Where they could specify the probots that they want to enable.

[pepicrft]

Awesome! I’m currently implementing it but it seems like it’s going to work. I’ll join your Slack channel 😃. Thank you very much for all your help.

[JasonEtco]

@pepibumur thanks for that detailed answer - I think I understand a little more what you’re getting at. I misunderstood and thought you were installing multiple apps, when what it sounds like is that you’ve combined Probot apps into one deployment (per these docs I’m guessing).

I’m not sure that we should be building that into Probot core; generally we don’t suggest combining apps, but of course we recognize that for big companies with lots of security and infrastructure needs it might be easier.

I realize this isn’t what you’re asking, but you could do this yourself; combining apps is really just loading those Probot apps’ index.js files as a part of the overarching app’s startup process. To gate that based on a config setting, here’s what it could look like (this is not tested and potentially a bad idea, just sharing some thoughts):

const EventEmitter = require('events')

function bindFakeRobot (path) {
  const events = new EventEmitter()
  const plugin = require(path)
  plugin.events = events
  return plugin(events)
}

module.exports = robot => {
  const plugins = {
    autolabeler: bindFakeRobot('./autolabeler/index.js'),
    triager: bindFakeRobot('./triager/index.js')
  }

  robot.on('*', async context => {
    if (context.payload.repository) {
      const config = await context.config('probots.yml')

      Object.keys(plugins).forEach(key => {
        if (config[key]) {
          const event = context.event + (context.payload.action ? `.${context.payload.action}` : '')
          plugin.events.emit(event, context)
        }
      })
    }
  })
}