Teams Setup

Connecting spore.host to Microsoft Teams gives you /spore commands in any channel and direct message notifications when your instances change state — useful whenever you're away from the terminal.

What you'll get

Slash commands — type these in any Teams channel:

/spore list                    — all your registered instances
/spore status rstudio          — current state, type, URL, TTL countdown
/spore start rstudio           — start a stopped instance
/spore stop rstudio            — stop a running instance
/spore extend rstudio 4h       — extend the auto-terminate deadline
/spore hibernate rstudio       — hibernate (save RAM state, stop billing)
/spore connect                 — generate a one-time code for a collaborator
/spore notify rstudio          — subscribe to DM notifications for this instance
/spore help                    — command reference

Proactive DM notifications for lifecycle events:

• rstudio terminates in 5 minutes
• bert-finetune has completed
• analysis has hibernated — idle timeout reached
• training received a Spot interruption notice

Prerequisites

• A Microsoft 365 tenant with Teams
• Azure Bot registration (free tier is sufficient)
• Self-hosted spore-bot Lambda deployed in your AWS account — see the self-hosting guide for full infrastructure setup

Step 1: Create an Azure Bot

1. In the Azure Portal, go to Azure Bot and click Create
2. Name it spore-bot (or whatever you prefer)
3. Under Configuration → Messaging endpoint, enter your spore-bot Lambda URL:

   https://<your-lambda-url>/teams

4. Note your Bot ID (the app's Client ID) and Client Secret from the Azure Bot's Configuration page

Step 2: Create the Teams app manifest

Create a file manifest.json:

{
  "manifestVersion": "1.17",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "id": "<YOUR_BOT_APP_ID>",
  "packageName": "host.spore.bot",
  "developer": {
    "name": "spore.host",
    "websiteUrl": "https://spore.host",
    "privacyUrl": "https://spore.host/privacy",
    "termsOfUseUrl": "https://spore.host/terms"
  },
  "name": { "short": "spore-bot" },
  "description": {
    "short": "Control your EC2 instances from Teams",
    "full": "Manage spore.host compute from Microsoft Teams"
  },
  "icons": { "color": "color.png", "outline": "outline.png" },
  "accentColor": "#3399FF",
  "bots": [
    {
      "botId": "<YOUR_BOT_APP_ID>",
      "scopes": ["personal", "team", "groupchat"],
      "commandLists": [
        {
          "scopes": ["personal", "team"],
          "commands": [
            { "title": "list", "description": "List your instances" },
            { "title": "status", "description": "Show instance status" },
            { "title": "help", "description": "Show command reference" }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "composeExtensions": [
    {
      "botId": "<YOUR_BOT_APP_ID>",
      "commands": [
        {
          "id": "spore",
          "type": "action",
          "title": "spore",
          "description": "Control your spore.host instances"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "permissions": ["identity", "messageTeamMembers"],
  "validDomains": ["spore.host"]
}

Replace <YOUR_BOT_APP_ID> with the Azure Bot's app ID (Client ID). Zip the manifest with your icon files and sideload it in Teams Admin Center, or publish it to your org's app catalog.

Step 3: Connect your workspace

Register your Teams tenant and bot credentials with the spore-bot Lambda:

spawn notify workspace-add \
  --platform teams \
  --workspace-id <TEAMS_TENANT_ID> \
  --bot-token <AZURE_BOT_CLIENT_SECRET> \
  --signing-secret <AZURE_BOT_APP_ID>

Your tenant ID is visible in the Azure Portal under Azure Active Directory → Overview (the Directory/Tenant ID field).

Step 4: Register an instance

Once the workspace is connected, register your instances so spore-bot can find them:

spawn notify register \
  --platform teams \
  --workspace-id <TEAMS_TENANT_ID> \
  --user-id <TEAMS_USER_ID> \
  --instance i-0a1b2c3d4e5f \
  --nickname rstudio

The --nickname is what you use in Teams commands (/spore status rstudio). To find your Teams user ID, run:

spawn notify list --platform teams --workspace-id <TEAMS_TENANT_ID>

Or use the --user flag with your email — spore-bot resolves it to a Teams user ID via the Graph API:

spawn notify register \
  --platform teams \
  --workspace-id <TEAMS_TENANT_ID> \
  --user you@university.edu \
  --instance i-0a1b2c3d4e5f \
  --nickname rstudio

Then enable the registration:

spawn notify enable \
  --platform teams \
  --user-id <TEAMS_USER_ID> \
  --workspace-id <TEAMS_TENANT_ID> \
  --nickname rstudio

Step 5: Enable notifications at launch

Set --slack-workspace to your Teams tenant ID when launching to enable DM notifications:

spawn launch \
  --name rstudio \
  --instance-type r6i.2xlarge \
  --ttl 8h \
  --slack-workspace <TEAMS_TENANT_ID>

INFO

The --slack-workspace flag is used for both Slack and Teams. The platform is determined by the registered workspace record.

Or save it as a default:

spawn defaults set slack-workspace <TEAMS_TENANT_ID>

Adding collaborators

Give a collaborator access to an instance without giving them AWS credentials.

spawn notify register \
  --platform teams \
  --user collaborator@partner.edu \
  --workspace-id <TEAMS_TENANT_ID> \
  --instance i-0a1b2c3d4e5f \
  --nickname rstudio

spawn notify enable \
  --platform teams \
  --user collaborator@partner.edu \
  --workspace-id <TEAMS_TENANT_ID> \
  --nickname rstudio

Alternatively, generate a one-time connect code that the collaborator redeems themselves:

/spore connect     # generates a code like SPORE-XXXXXX

The collaborator runs:

spawn notify register --connect-code SPORE-XXXXXX --nickname rstudio

Managing registrations

# List registrations for your workspace
spawn notify list --platform teams --workspace-id <TENANT_ID>

# Temporarily disable without deregistering
spawn notify disable \
  --platform teams \
  --user-id <TEAMS_USER_ID> \
  --workspace-id <TENANT_ID> \
  --nickname rstudio

# Permanently remove
spawn notify deregister \
  --platform teams \
  --user-id <TEAMS_USER_ID> \
  --workspace-id <TENANT_ID> \
  --nickname rstudio

Troubleshooting

Commands return "workspace not found" — verify that --workspace-id matches the tenant ID used in workspace-add. Tenant IDs are UUIDs like 72f988bf-86f1-41af-91ab-2d7cd011db47.

Not receiving DM notifications — ensure:

1. The instance was launched with --slack-workspace <TENANT_ID>
2. You've run /spore notify <nickname> in Teams to subscribe

Teams bot not responding — check the Lambda logs. The messaging endpoint in your Azure Bot configuration must match your Lambda URL exactly, including the /teams path suffix.

Proactive messages blocked — Teams requires the bot to have an active conversation reference before it can send proactive DMs. Send the bot any message (e.g., hello) to establish the conversation, then lifecycle notifications will flow.