About SynoChat

SynoChat is a Python package which allows for easy integration with the Synology Chat API in just a few lines of code. According to the documentation (which is sadly a bit sparse), Synology Chat has support for both incoming and outgoing webhooks, slash commands and bots.

Package support

This package currently supports:

• Incoming webhooks: Send messages to a chat channel in Synology Chat from the synochat library.
• Outgoing webhooks: Send messages from Synology Chat to the synochat library.
• Slash commands: Send commands with parameters from Synology Chat to the synochat library.

Installation

It is recommended to install this package inside a virtual environment as with most Python packages. Use pip to install the package.

Create virtual environment

$ virtualenv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate

Install package

$ pip install synochat

Setting up integration

Before we start coding we must setup the integration in the Synology Chat client.

Do this by opening the Synology Chat client, either in the web application or the native desktop application, and go to User Profile > Integration and follow the instructions. Click here for more help.

Setting up integrations in the smartphone or tablet app is currently not available.

Incoming webhooks

Using an incoming webhook we can post messages into a channel in Synology Chat. Besides sending just simple text to a channel we can also attach links and file uploads (which are available via HTTP).

Setting up integration

Go to User Profile > Integration and follow the instructions.

Take note of the Webhook URL in the integration settings dialog. You need to extract a few components from this link:

• Hostname: For example chat.example.com or 192.168.0.2
• Port: For example 80, 443, 5000, 5001
• Token: The token string (64 characters at the end of the line)

Important! Do not include %22 surrounding the token in the URL. The token should be exactly 64 characters.

Code

Use this simple code example to send a message to the chat channel associated with this token.

from synochat.webhooks import IncomingWebhook

token = "w6Jw1Z6EpEONtabCfcTk6YObsaaj958fGzWOTQe0s33pl42RVLmkRUJBWoCgSfoz"
webhook = IncomingWebhook('chat.example.com', token)

webhook.send('This text is sent to Synology Chat.')

Add a link

We can easily add a link to the message with the < and > characters.

webhook.send('Send text with a link embedded <https://www.synology.com>')

Define the link text by appending |text to the link tag.

webhook.send('Check out <https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/chat|Synology Chat>!')

This is how it might look in the Synology Chat client:

Add an image

Add an image file to the message by passing a URL in the file_url parameter.

webhook.send('Send text with a photo attached.', file_url='https://www.synology.com/img/company/branding/synology_logo.jpg')

Add a file

Or upload a file of any type by passing a URL to the file in the file_url parameter.

webhook.send('Send text with a file attached.', file_url='http://ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com/5MB.zip'')

Advanced

If you access your Synology DiskStation on a different port than the default for this library (HTTPS/443) or if you don't have a valid SSL certificate on you NAS (which you should), you can tweak these settings like this:

webhook = IncomingWebhook('192.168.0.2', token, port=5001, verify_ssl=False)

Note that this will still use HTTPS (https://...) in the request to the Synology Chat server. If running HTTP on port 5001, change to HTTP (http://...) like so:

webhook.use_https = False

It is also possible to change these settings via class properties:

webhook.hostname = "nas.yourdomain.com"
webhook.port = "443"
webhook.use_https = True
webhook.verify_ssl = True
webhook.token = "..."

Make sure to set them before calling the send() method.

Rate limiting

The Synology Chat API is rate limited so it's not possible to send messages inside a loop without a delay between posts. To handle this the synochat library implements a delay after a post has been created with the send() method.

There are two properties available to change this behavior if you prefer to handle the RateLimitException() on your own instead.

webhook.send_delay_enabled = False
webhook.send_delay = 0.75

These properties can also be overridden in the class constructor if preferred.

webhook = IncomingWebhook('192.168.0.2', token, port=5001, verify_ssl=False, send_delay_enabled=False, send_delay=1.5)

The send delay is set to 0.5 seconds by default.

Exceptions

The send() method will raise an exception if the request to the Synology Chat server fails for some reason.

Check out the examples or the exceptions file for more information.

Outgoing webhooks

Outgoing webhooks listen for trigger words in chat messages. When a trigger word is detected, a call is made to the webhook associated with the trigger word. Consider the following example:

When the word Ping (case sensitive) is noticed in a chat message, a call is made to http://192.168.0.2:5001/echo

Code

To setup the listening part of this functionality we can use the Flask framework, which is a lightweight web framework for Python.

from flask import Flask, request

from synochat.webhooks import OutgoingWebhook

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/echo', methods=['POST'])
def echo():
	token = 'f69oQY4l5v7UVzKqmVfw1MQgFGZmxwODg1sndKIqsz8grAqYnKyerCRISQa1MiJj'
	webhook = OutgoingWebhook(request.form, token, verbose=True)

	if not webhook.authenticate(token):
		return webhook.createResponse('Outgoing Webhook authentication failed: Token mismatch.')

	print(webhook)

	return webhook.createResponse('Pong')

if __name__ == '__main__':
   app.run('0.0.0.0', port=5001, debug = True)

The code is self explanatory. To debug the request you can use the print(webhook) method:

<class 'synochat.webhooks.OutgoingWebhook'>: {'client_token': 'f69oQY4l5v7UVzKqmVfw1MQgFGZmxwODg1sndKIqsz8grAqYnKyerCRISQa1MiJj', 'server_token': 'f69oQY4l5v7UVzKqmVfw1MQgFGZmxwODg1sndKIqsz8grAqYnKyerCRISQa1MiJj', 'channel_id': '34', 'channel_type': '1', 'channel_name': 'Labb', 'user_id': '4', 'username': 'mikael', 'post_id': '146028888230', 'thread_id': '0', 'timestamp': '1647060330657', 'text': 'Ping', 'trigger_word': 'Ping', 'verbose': True}

Class properties

To access the data from the outgoing webhook, use the class properties (which are read-only):

webhook.client_token
webhook.server_token
webhook.channel_id
webhook.channel_type
webhook.channel_name
webhook.user_id
webhook.username
webhook.post_id
webhook.thread_id
webhook.timestamp
webhook.text
webhook.trigger_word
webhook.verbose

Add a link

Like with an incoming webhook we can easily add a link to the response message with the < and > characters.

webhook.createResponse('Send text with a link embedded <https://www.synology.com>')

Define the link text by appending |text to the link tag.

webhook.createResponse('Check out <https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/chat|Synology Chat>!')

Add an image

Add an image file to the message by passing a URL in the file_url parameter.

webhook.createResponse('Send text with a photo attached.', file_url='https://www.synology.com/img/company/branding/synology_logo.jpg')

Add a file

Or upload a file of any type by passing a URL to the file in the file_url parameter.

webhook.createResponse('Send text with a file attached.', file_url='http://ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com/5MB.zip'')

Slash commands

With slash commands we can trigger outgoing webhooks by typing / in the text field of the Synology Chat client. In contrast to outgoing webhooks the response from the slash command is only visible to the user who triggered the command.

Parameters

A slash command can also accept parameters, both positional and optional.

Positional parameters

Positional parameters must appear in the correct order for them to be parsed correctly.

Example:

/ping 1.1.1.1 count=4 time

In the example above we have a slash command named /ping.

• 1.1.1.1 is the first positional parameter. The name is defined in the code, for example ip.

Important! Positional parameters must be placed in the first part of the slash command (before optional parameter).

Example:

/command positionalParam1 positionalParam2 optionalParam1 optionalParam2

Define a parameter as positional by calling the addParameter() method, which creates a positional parameter by default.

ip = command.addParameter('ip')

Optional parameters

Optional parameters can appear in any order as long as they appear after the positional parameters.

Example:

/ping 1.1.1.1 count=4 time

In the example above we have a slash command named /ping.

• count=4 is the first optional parameter. The name is count and the value is 4.
• time is the seconds optional parameter. The name is time and the value is None.

Important! Optional parameters must be placed in the last part of the slash command (after positional parameters).

Define a parameter as optional by calling the addParameter() method with optional=True.

count = command.addParameter('count', optional=True)
time  = command.addParameter('time', optional=True)

Settings

Go to the Integration settings of the Synology Chat client to setup a slash command:

It is now time for the implementation of this example.

Code

In order for us to setup the receiving end of the slash command we can use Flask here as well.

from flask import Flask, request

from synochat.webhooks import SlashCommand
from synochat.exceptions import *

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/slash', methods=['POST'])
def slash():
	token   = 'LnTEXv9xKBwJtmIiXttGvpKaccEDHVJU5No4XX6oTnt7BQnPxbDwsWey1Pb9g9V2'
	command = SlashCommand(request.form)

	if not command.authenticate(token):
		return command.createResponse('Invalid token.')

	# Check if the command parameters are valid
	try:
		action  = command.addParameter('action')
		code    = command.addParameter('code',  optional=False)
		delay   = command.addParameter('delay', optional=True)
		silent  = command.addParameter('silent', optional=True)
	except ParameterParseError:
		return command.createResponse('Slash command failed because one or more parameters are missing.')

	# Handle the first (positional) parameter
	if action.isPresent():
		print(action)
	else:
		print(f"Parameter 'action' not detected in the command.")

	# Handle the second (positional) parameter
	if code.isPresent():
		print(code)
	else:
		print(f"Parameter 'code' not detected in the command.")

	# Handle the third (optional) parameter
	if delay.isPresent():
		print(delay)
	else:
		print(f"Parameter 'delay' not detected in the command.")

	# Handle the third (optional) parameter
	if silent.isPresent():
		print(silent)
	else:
		print(f"Parameter 'silent' not detected in the command.")

	return command.createResponse('Slash command received.')

if __name__ == '__main__':
   app.run('0.0.0.0', port=5001, debug = True)

Now try to call this command in Synology Chat:

The addParameter() method is in charge of adding an object of the Parameter class as well as to populate the object with the data received from the Synology Chat client.

The authenticate() method is used to compare the token of the Synology Chat server and the client script. It is not nessecary to call this method but highly recommended due to security concerns.

The createResponse() method help us to compile a valid response to be returned to the Synology Chat server.

The isPresent() method is used to check if the parameter was included in the slash command. This method is mostly usable for optional parameters but can also be used with positional parameter as for code consistency.

We can output the properties of a Parameter by using the print() method.

If running the above code example, the output should look like this:

<class 'synochat.webhooks.Parameter'>: {'name': 'action', 'value': 'add',  'optional': False, 'detected': True}
<class 'synochat.webhooks.Parameter'>: {'name': 'code',   'value': '1234', 'optional': False, 'detected': True}
<class 'synochat.webhooks.Parameter'>: {'name': 'delay',  'value': '5',    'optional': True,  'detected': True}
<class 'synochat.webhooks.Parameter'>: {'name': 'silent', 'value': None,   'optional': True,  'detected': True}

Class properties

To access the raw data from the slash command, use the class property (read-only):

command.text

To access the data from a parameter, use these class properties (read-only).

parameter.name
parameter.value
parameter.optional
parameter.detected

Final word

This should be enough to get started using integrations with Synology Chat.

Good luck! 😁