Build Your Own Chatbot For An Enhanced DevOps Experience

In the world of DevOps, we have two progressive and transformative trends: MLOps and AIOps. These technologies are expected to be a multi-billion-dollar industry shortly due to their important and effective role in optimizing DevOps operations for high-quality and rapid releases.

Let's dive into these game-changing concepts while drawing inspiration from OpenAI's GPT-4, and Kubeflow tools to provide a real-world perspective. This article is a practical guide to making your own ChatBOT to simplify DevOps using Python FastAPI, which can be trained by using datasets, user interaction, and chatlogs.

You can customize this sort of bot for your small or bigger business as per your needs.

AIOps and MLOps: Improved Operational Efficiency

AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations) signifies a transformative shift in the automation of IT processes and operations. Imagine a world where your IT systems can self-diagnose and respond to issues by preventing disruptions and enhancing overall productivity.

Yes, AIOps is here to pave the way for this future by utilizing AI and machine learning (ML) to identify the root causes of operational bottlenecks. It serves as a guiding light for making proactive and data-driven decisions.

So, essentially, AIOps is the compass guiding organizations toward a future where IT operations are self-healing and ever-responsive.

On the other hand, MLOps (Machine Learning Operations) is the key to elevating your machine learning development game. It's all about empowering the ML lifecycle (from development to deployment) to maximize productivity and quality. MLOps is your co-pilot in the journey of optimizing operations.

With MLOps, your development teams can fine-tune ML models, implement version control, and ensure reproducibility. The result? Smoother, more efficient development processes that lead to powerful ML applications.

MLOps empowers you to unlock the full potential of AI by bridging the gap between data science and operations.

ChatOps: Unified Conversations and Automation

ChatOps (the combination of unified communication and automation) merges work-related conversations with technical processes. It introduces a bot into the conversation loop to collaborate seamlessly with your team members and users who need an immediate response related to the software.

Imagine the magic of automating repetitive tasks, executing scripts, and receiving updates—all within the context of your chat platform. In the world of ChatOps, collaboration and technical efficiency go hand in hand. This convergence of conversations and automation brings crucial agility to your DevOps workflows.

It's not just about enhancing your conversations; it's about boosting your productivity by automating tasks that don't need a human touch.

Large Language Models: The Power of Text Generation

Large Language Models (LLMs) (such as ChatGPT) are created through machine learning and learn from massive amounts of text. These smart models grasp context and meaning, so they can write text that sounds human and makes sense.

LLMs (like ChatGPT) have many practical uses. They can answer questions, write essays, create text for apps, and even help automate tasks. Using these models is a big deal in AI as they let businesses make the most of natural language (NL) generation.

Model Servers and Scaling: The Heartbeat of AI

Model servers and scaling are the two crucial factors of AI deployment for your enhanced DevOps. Model servers are designed to host machine learning models as they serve predictions in real-time. They manage load balancing, versioning, and metrics tracking. It's like the circulatory system that keeps your AI solutions alive and responsive.

In other words, it is the art of adapting computational resources to match demand. It involves both scaling up (adding more resources to a single node) and scaling out (expanding the system by adding more nodes).

Build Your Own Chatbot

Alright, these are the concepts on ongoing trends of advanced DevOps. Now, let’s make your own chatbot to perform various tasks like minimizing repetitive tasks, answering users' questions, assisting in executing codes, and collaborating with your team members.

In this project, we are going to build a chatbot for software say, “Quantum Mechanical Calculation,” and the bot for it is “QuantumBOT.” The chatbot responds to user messages and stores the conversation in a database.

Python FastAP, SQLAlchemy, and an SQLite database are used to build the project, and essentially, it is a demonstration for basic software-related query handling so that your DevOps team can effectively handle important tasks and issues.

This sort of bot can be very useful to integrate into your support system’s loop. Here, spaCy is used as a natural language processing (NLP) tool for text understanding and processing.

You can also make your Chatbot by integrating the advanced OpenAI API, but here, we are building our own bot so that you can have more control over your chat logic, data, purposes, training, and many more.

Prerequisites

Make sure that you have the following prerequisites in place:

📥Python: Make sure you have Python installed on your system. You can download it from the official Python website.

📥Virtual Environment(Optional): Please replace “path\to\my_project”, “venv_name”, and “myenv” with your actual path to the project, and the names of environments respectively.

Use the following command:

cd path\to\my_project
python -m venv venv_name
python -m venv myenv
venv_name\Scripts\activate

📥Install the required packages using pip:

pip install fastapi uvicorn databases sqlalchemy aiosqlite

📥SQLite Database: Visit the SQLite download page.

📥Additional Libraries: For advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) or Natural Language Generation (NLG) in your chatbot, you may need additional libraries like spaCy, NLTK, or GPT-3, depending on your requirements. These can be installed using pip as well. Here we used spaCy:

pip install spacy
python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm

First, make sure to keep the project directory on your machine in the following format:

Now, let’s be focused on the backend of the application. Navigate to your project directory by using the command in the terminal.

cd path/to/my_chatbot_project #Replace  "path/to/" by actual path to the project folder.

Everything is stepwise, so no need to worry.

✅Step-1: Database Setup: You'll need a database to store chat logs. Here, SQLite is used for this project. Create a database.py file to manage the database connection.

import sqlalchemy
from databases import Database

DATABASE_URL = "sqlite:///C:/Users/example/Documents/QuantumBot/my_chatbot_project/chatbot.db"

database = Database(DATABASE_URL)

metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

chat_logs = sqlalchemy.Table(
    "chat_logs",
    metadata,
    sqlalchemy.Column("id", sqlalchemy.Integer, primary_key=True),
    sqlalchemy.Column("user_message", sqlalchemy.String),
    sqlalchemy.Column("bot_reply", sqlalchemy.String),
    sqlalchemy.Column("user_feedback", sqlalchemy.String), 
)

engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine(DATABASE_URL)
metadata.create_all(engine)

👉Note:- Please replace

sqlite:///C:/Users/example/Documents/QuantumBot/my_chatbot_project/chatbot.db

by your actual URL.

✅ Step-2: Database Models:

You can create a separate models.py script within the chatlogs package to define the SQLAlchemy models. For example:

import sqlalchemy

metadata = sqlalchemy.MetaData()

chat_log = sqlalchemy.Table(
    "chat_logs",
    metadata,
    sqlalchemy.Column("id", sqlalchemy.Integer, primary_key=True),
    sqlalchemy.Column("user_message", sqlalchemy.String),
    sqlalchemy.Column("bot_reply", sqlalchemy.String),
    sqlalchemy.Column("user_feedback", sqlalchemy.String) 
)

✅Step-3: Implement Chatbot Logic: Implement the chatbot logic to handle the common queries as follows: Here, the bot can respond if their questions contain the following keywords.

"newer versions, quantum mechanical calculation, creator of this software, software crashing, version control, continuous integration and continuous deployment, automated testing, dependency management, code review, monitoring and logging, backup and disaster recovery, resource scaling, security measures, release process, configuration management, knowledge sharing, continuous improvement, API versioning, DevOps collaboration."

These keywords are associated with predefined answers in the qa_pairs dictionary.

import spacy
nlp = spacy.load("en_core_web_sm")

def handle_user_message(user_message):
    bot_reply = ""
    doc = nlp(user_message)

    qa_pairs = {
        "newer versions": "Yes, there's a newer version of the software available. You can download it from our website.",
        "quantum mechanical calculation": "Our software uses advanced quantum algorithms and parallel processing to perform complex quantum mechanical calculations efficiently.",
        "creator of this software": "Our software was created by @induction to perform complex quantum mechanical calculations like Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD, Nuclear Structure, Quantum Many-Body Theory, Molecular Structure and Bonding, and many more.",
        "software crashing": "I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing crashes. To resolve this issue, please try the following steps:\n1. Update the software to the latest version.\n2. Check your system's hardware requirements.\n3. Verify that you have enough memory and disk space.\n4. Disable any conflicting software or extensions.\n5. Contact our support team for further assistance.",
        "version control": "We use Git for version control. All code is stored in repositories, and we follow branching strategies to manage feature development, bug fixes, and releases.",
        "continuous integration and continuous deployment": "We have implemented Jenkins for continuous integration and continuous deployment. Code changes are automatically built, tested, and deployed to various environments.",
        "automated testing": "We use a combination of unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests. Testing frameworks like JUnit and Selenium are utilized for automated testing to maintain code quality and reliability.",
        "dependency management": "We employ package managers like Maven for Java-based dependencies and npm for JavaScript dependencies. Regular security scans and updates are part of our process.",
        "code review": "Code reviews are mandatory for all changes. We use tools like GitHub's pull requests for peer reviews to ensure code quality and collaboration.",
        "monitoring and logging": "We utilize Prometheus for monitoring and ELK stack for log management. Alerts are set up to notify us of any performance or operational issues.",
        "backup and disaster recovery": "Regular backups are taken and stored in geographically distributed locations. We have a documented disaster recovery plan that is periodically tested.",
        "resource scaling": "Auto-scaling is implemented in our cloud infrastructure to handle variable workloads efficiently.",
        "security measures": "Security is a top priority. We perform regular security audits, use WAFs, encryption, and access controls. Compliance with regulations is ensured.",
        "release process": "Releases are done using a blue-green deployment strategy to minimize downtime. Feature flags are used to enable/disable new features for users.",
        "configuration management": "Infrastructure as code (IaC) is managed with tools like Terraform and Ansible. Configuration changes are tracked and versioned.",
        "knowledge sharing": "We maintain documentation in a knowledge base and use collaboration tools like Confluence to share information within the DevOps team.",
        "continuous improvement": "We conduct retrospectives after each release to identify areas of improvement. Feedback is incorporated into our DevOps processes.",
        "API versioning": "We maintain backward compatibility for APIs, and versioning is done using API version numbers in the URL.",
        "DevOps collaboration": "We use tools like Slack and integrate them with our CI/CD pipelines to ensure real-time communication between development and operations teams."
    }

    for question, answer in qa_pairs.items():
        if question in user_message:
            bot_reply = answer
            break

    if not bot_reply:
        bot_reply = "I didn't quite catch that. Could you please rephrase your question, or ask something else?"

    return bot_reply

Here, the NLP library SpaCy is used for natural language understanding and generation.

✅Step-4: Create the Database Table: After defining the database.py file, you need to create the database table. You can do this by running a script. Here's how to create the table using SQLAlchemy:

from sqlalchemy import create_engine, Column, Integer, String, MetaData, Table

DATABASE_URL = "sqlite:///C:/Users/example/Documents/QuantumBot/my_chatbot_project/chatbot.db"

engine = create_engine(DATABASE_URL)

metadata = MetaData()

chat_logs = Table(
    "chat_logs",
    metadata,
    Column("id", Integer, primary_key=True),
    Column("user_message", String),
    Column("bot_reply", String),
    Column("user_feedback", String) 
)

metadata.create_all(engine)

print("Table 'chat_logs' created or updated successfully.")

✅Step-5: Create a FastAPI Application: Create a FastAPI application ( main.py , serves as API Endpoint) for the chatbot by ensuring the database connection is working. We import the database object to interact with the database.

For example, you can use it to insert chat logs into the database as you handle user requests and store bot replies. Note: We have already created a FastAPI route for the frontend. In this main.py, we have defined a FastAPI route that serves the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files for your frontend.

The entire frontend steps are listed below.

from fastapi import FastAPI, Request
from fastapi.responses import FileResponse, JSONResponse
from fastapi.staticfiles import StaticFiles
from chatlogics import handle_user_message
from chatlogs.database import database, chat_logs

app = FastAPI()

app.mount("/static", StaticFiles(directory="static"), name="static")

@app.get("/")
async def get_frontend(request: Request):
    return FileResponse("static/index.html")

@app.post("/chatbot/")
async def chat(user_message: dict):
    try:
        user_message_text = user_message["user_message"]
        bot_reply = handle_user_message(user_message_text)

        query = chat_logs.insert().values(user_message=user_message_text, bot_reply=bot_reply)
        await database.execute(query)

        return {"user_message": user_message_text, "bot_reply": bot_reply}
    except Exception as e:
        return {"user_message": user_message_text, "bot_reply": "An error occurred: " + str(e)}

@app.post("/submit-feedback/")
async def submit_feedback(feedback: dict):
    try:
        rating = feedback["rating"]
        user_feedback = feedback["feedback"]

        query = chat_logs.update().values(user_feedback=user_feedback).where(chat_logs.c.id == feedback["feedback_id"])
        await database.execute(query)

        return {"message": "Feedback submitted successfully"}
    except Exception as e:
        return {"error": str(e)}

@app.get("/feedbacks/")
async def get_feedbacks():
    try:
        query = chat_logs.select().where(chat_logs.c.user_feedback.isnot(None))
        result = await database.fetch_all(query)

        feedback_data = []
        for row in result:
            feedback_data.append({
                "id": row["id"],
                "user_feedback": row["user_feedback"],
            })

        return JSONResponse(content=feedback_data)
    except Exception as e:
        return JSONResponse(content={"error": str(e)}, status_code=500)

@app.get("/chatlogs/")
async def get_chatlogs():
    try:
        query = chat_logs.select()
        result = await database.fetch_all(query)

        chat_log_data = []
        for row in result:
            chat_log_data.append({
                "id": row["id"],
                "user_message": row["user_message"],
                "bot_reply": row["bot_reply"],
            })

        return JSONResponse(content=chat_log_data)
    except Exception as e:
        return JSONResponse(content={"error": str(e)}, status_code=500)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    import uvicorn
    uvicorn.run(app, host="0.0.0.0", port=8000)

✅Step-6: Run Your FastAPI Application: Now, you can run your FastAPI application defined in main.py using the uvicorn command. The syntax is as follows:

uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

And, the terminal should exhibit something like this otherwise revise the process.

✅Step-7: Access Your Chatbot API: Now, open the next terminal by keeping the FastAPI application running in the initial one; you can access your chatbot API by sending POST requests to it. You can use tools like curl, and Postman, or write a simple Python script to send requests to the chatbot endpoint (e.g., http://0.0.0.0:8000/chatbot/).

For example, using curl to send a POST request with a user message:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"user_message\": \"How do you ensure that version control is effectively implemented?\"}" http://localhost:8000/chatbot/

Here, the chatbot has responded as main.py has successfully heard the user’s requests and responded to the question “How do you ensure that version control is effectively implemented?

✅Step-8: Monitor Your Application: You can monitor your FastAPI application by visiting the following URL in your web browser: http://localhost:8000/docs

Alright, these steps are for the backend of the chatbot; now, let’s be focused on the front end of the bot.

Like before, please care to make a directory of the frontend as follows:

Make sure the folder static and main.py are in the same folder.

✅Step-1: In index.html, we have created the structure of the chatbot interface. You'll have input fields for user messages and a section to display bot responses (You can modify the code as per your need).

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/static/style.css">
</head>
<body>
    <div id="chat-container">
        <div id="chat-header">
            <h1>QuantumBOT</h1>
        </div>
        <div id="chat-history">
            <!-- Chat history will be displayed here -->
        </div>
        <div id="user-input">
            <input type="text" id="user-message" placeholder="Type your message">
            <button id="send-button">Send</button>
        </div>
    </div>
    <script src="/static/script.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

✅Step-2: In style.css, define the styling for your chatbot interface.

body {
    font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
    background-color: #f5f5f5;
    text-align: center;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

#chat-container {
    width: 80%;
    margin: 0 auto;
    background-color: #fff;
    box-shadow: 0 2px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1);
    border-radius: 10px;
}

#chat-header {
    background-color: #007bff;
    color: #fff;
    padding: 10px;
    border-top-left-radius: 10px;
    border-top-right-radius: 10px;
}

#chat-history {
    height: 400px;
    overflow-y: scroll;
    padding: 20px;
}

#user-input {
    padding: 10px;
    display: flex;
    align-items: center;
    justify-content: center;
    background-color: #f9f9f9;
    border-bottom-left-radius: 10px;
    border-bottom-right-radius: 10px;
}

#user-message {
    width: 70%;
    padding: 10px;
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
    border-radius: 4px;
}

#send-button {
    width: 25%;
    padding: 10px;
    background-color: #007bff;
    color: #fff;
    border: none;
    border-radius: 4px;
    cursor: pointer;
}

    #send-button:hover {
        background-color: #0056b3;
    }

.user-message {
    background-color: #e0e0e0;
    border-radius: 5px;
    padding: 10px;
    margin: 10px 0;
    max-width: 70%;
    align-self: flex-start;
}

.bot-message {
    background-color: #007bff;
    color: #fff;
    border-radius: 5px;
    padding: 10px;
    margin: 10px 0;
    max-width: 70%;
    align-self: flex-end;
}

✅Step-3: In script.js, use JavaScript to handle user interactions, send requests to your FastAPI backend, and display responses on the page. In script.js, use JavaScript to make POST requests to your FastAPI backend (specifically the /chatbot/ endpoint) to send user messages and receive bot responses. You can use the Fetch API or any JavaScript library to request HTTP.

document.getElementById("send-button").addEventListener("click", function () {
    const userMessage = document.getElementById("user-message").value;

    fetch("/chatbot/", {
        method: "POST",
        headers: {
            "Content-Type": "application/json",
        },
        body: JSON.stringify({ user_message: userMessage }),
    })
    .then(response => response.json())
    .then(data => {
        const chatHistory = document.getElementById("chat-history");

        const userMessageElement = document.createElement("div");
        userMessageElement.className = "user-message";
        userMessageElement.innerHTML = `<span class="message-icon">You:</span> ${userMessage}`;
        chatHistory.appendChild(userMessageElement);

        if (data.bot_reply) {
            const botMessageElement = document.createElement("div");
            botMessageElement.className = "bot-message";
            botMessageElement.innerHTML = `<span class="message-icon">Bot:</span> ${data.bot_reply}`;
            chatHistory.appendChild(botMessageElement);
        } else {
            console.error("Invalid bot reply:", data);
        }

        document.getElementById("user-message").value = "";

        chatHistory.scrollTop = chatHistory.scrollHeight;

        const ratingFeedbackContainer = document.createElement("div");
        ratingFeedbackContainer.className = "rating-feedback-container";
        ratingFeedbackContainer.innerHTML = `
            <div class="rating-container">
                <span class="message-icon">Rate the response:</span>
                <select id="rating">
                    <option value="5">5 (Excellent)</option>
                    <option value="4">4 (Good)</option>
                    <option value="3">3 (Average)</option>
                    <option value="2">2 (Poor)</option>
                    <option value="1">1 (Terrible)</option>
                </select>
            </div>
            <div class="feedback-container">
                <span class="message-icon">Provide feedback:</span>
                <textarea id="feedback" rows="2"></textarea>
            </div>
            <button id="submit-rating-feedback">Submit</button>
        `;
        chatHistory.appendChild(ratingFeedbackContainer);

        document.getElementById("submit-rating-feedback").addEventListener("click", function () {
            const selectedRating = document.getElementById("rating").value;
            const userFeedback = document.getElementById("feedback").value;

            fetch("/submit-feedback/", {
                method: "POST",
                headers: {
                    "Content-Type": "application/json",
                },
                body: JSON.stringify({ rating: selectedRating, feedback: userFeedback, feedback_id: chatHistory.children.length - 3 }),
            })
            .then(response => response.json())
            .then(data => {
                console.log("Feedback submitted:", data);

                ratingFeedbackContainer.remove();
                document.getElementById("feedback").value = "";
            });
        });
    });
});

✅Step-4: It’s time to run the FastAPI Frontend, so start your FastAPI frontend application using Uvicorn as follows:

uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

✅Step-5: Your FastAPI-based chatbot frontend should now be accessible in a web browser at http://localhost:8000.

You can interact with the chatbot through this interface.

Let’s see the result of the bot interface and its responses to the queries. Done, here is our QuantumBOT 😉!

Now, we have a basic FastAPI-based frontend for the chatbot. You can enhance the frontend further by adding real-time updates and additional features as needed.

We have just built a chatbot that can assist in solving DevOps-related operations. It has a built-in feature to handle users’ feedback which could be used to enhance the performance of the bot with more effective responses.

For now, you can test the feedback from the following URL in your browser.

http://localhost:8000/feedbacks/

You’ll see a screen, something like this.

Also, check chatlogs for further improvements.

http://localhost:8000/chatlogs/

This chatbot in this project is designed to handle common queries related to DevOps and software development. It responds to user messages that contain specific keywords and phrases related to DevOps practices, tools, and concepts. The predefined qa_pairs are used to generate responses.

For example, if a user asks a question related to version control, the bot will provide an answer regarding how version control is implemented in the software development process.

You can extend the performance of this bot with a more sophisticated design by integrating large language models like GPT. If you’re interested in the integration of GPT into this chatbot, you can do it as follows:

✅Step-1: Have API Access which comes up with certain plans and pricing. Refer to their official website.

✅Step-2: Install the Python SDK or client library provided by the API provider.

✅Step_3: In our previous main.py , modify the handle_user_message function to include API requests. When a user query doesn't match any predefined question, you can pass it to the large language model for a more sophisticated response.

Example using OpenAI's GPT-3.5 API:

import openai

# Set your API key
api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"
openai.api_key = api_key

def handle_user_message(user_message):
    bot_reply = ""

    # Check if the user message matches predefined questions (as before)
    # ...

    if not bot_reply:
        # If no predefined answer found, use GPT-3.5 to generate a response
        response = openai.Completion.create(
            engine="davinci",
            prompt=user_message,
            max_tokens=50  # Adjust as needed
        )
        bot_reply = response.choices[0].text

    return bot_reply

Wondering how? You can integrate this bot for enhanced machine-learning approaches too. You can train machine learning models (e.g., chatbot models using frameworks like TensorFlow or PyTorch) to understand and generate responses based on the collected dataset so it enables the bot to generalize better to user queries.

Finally, if you wish to deploy your project on a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) like Aptible. You need to follow their plans and pricing along with documentation.

In the case of Aptible, prefer their documentation here.

But please keep in mind that in the case of larger models, AI workload scaling will come into the contrast. You should implement the subtle measures for the scaling approaches as well.

AI Workload Scaling:

AI workload scaling is the practice of efficiently distributing and managing the computational tasks involved in artificial intelligence and machine learning operations, encompassing data ingestion, preprocessing, and model analysis, using tools like Kubernetes, OpenShift, and Kubeflow.

It is a cornerstone of modern DevOps and is essential for optimizing AI operations in our data-driven world.

Wrapping Up:

In summary, the fusion of MLOps, AIOps, ChatOps, large language models, and AI workload scaling offers a glimpse into the exciting possibilities that lie ahead in the world of DevOps.

As organizations increasingly rely on these technologies to optimize their operations, we can expect to see a revolution in the way software is developed and managed for more efficient, data-driven, and collaborative DevOps practices.

In this article, we discussed practical guidance on creating a customizable Chatbot for DevOps using Python FastAPI which is capable of handling common queries. Moreover, the article explores the integration of large language models like GPT-3.5 for more sophisticated responses and describes the way for deployment options.

Here, AI workload scaling is recognized as a vital component in managing AI and machine learning tasks efficiently. It is a matter to see in the future, how these innovative technologies will assist in revolutionizing DevOps by enhancing collaboration, automation, and data-driven decision-making in software development and operations.