Integrating Python with WeCom to Push Messages to Internal Groups

Preface

A previous article mentioned using the wechatpy library to implement WeCom app login: Implementing WeCom Login in a Django + Taro Separated Frontend-Backend Project

In fact, this library can do a great deal; basically all features involved in WeChat development can be implemented.

This article introduces a very common scenario: pushing messages to WeCom groups in real time.

Installation

First install the wechatpy library

pip install wechatpy

If you get prompted to install other libraries at runtime (such as those related to encryption/decryption), just follow the prompts and install them. I won't belabor that here.

Create a WeCom App

First, go to the WeCom admin console and create an app, then note down the app ID (app_id)

While you're there, also note down the corp ID (corp_id) and secret from the admin console

Let's Get to the Code

Nothing else to it—let's start writing code

Create the App Object

Straight to the code

from wechatpy.work import WeChatClient
from wechatpy.work.client.api import WeChatAgent

client = WeChatClient('corp_id', 'secret')

agent: WeChatAgent = client.agent.get('app_id')

The IDs you need to fill in here are the ones mentioned above

With this agent object you can operate this WeCom app~

Create the Chat Object

To send messages, you first need a chat object. Well then, let's create one

from wechatpy.work.client.api import WeChatAppChat

chat = WeChatAppChat(client=client)

Create a Group Chat

As mentioned earlier, to send messages to a group, we still need to create a group

CHAT_ID = 'test'

result = chat.create(chat_id=CHAT_ID, name='群里名称', owner='群主ID',
                     user_list=['群主ID', '群员ID1', '群员ID2', '群员ID3'])

That's it—simple and easy to understand. When creating the group, specify the member IDs to invite in the user_list parameter

(Please look up these owner IDs and member IDs yourself in the WeCom admin console—they're the member IDs)

Wrap Up Some Common Operations

Send Text Messages

def send_text(content):
    print(chat.send_text(CHAT_ID, content))

It's just simply sending a text message. The result looks like this:

Send Text Cards

def send_text_card(title, description, url, btn_text):
    print(chat.send(CHAT_ID, 'textcard',
                    title=title,
                    description=description,
                    url=url,
                    btntxt=btn_text))

Here I used the official example

send_text_card('中秋节礼品领取',
               '<div class=\"gray\">2016年9月26日</div> <div class=\"normal\"> 恭喜你抽中iPhone 7一台，领奖码:520258</div><div class=\"highlight\">请于2016年10月10日前联系行 政同事领取</div>',
               'https://work.weixin.qq.com/', '谨防上当')

The result looks like this:

Send Images

def send_image(image_file):
    media = WeChatMedia(client)
    with open(image_file, 'rb') as f:
        result = media.upload('image', f)
        print(result)
    if 'media_id' in result:
        print(chat.send(CHAT_ID, 'image', media_id=result['media_id']))

Very simple—just pass the image path as the argument

The result looks like this

Send Markdown-Formatted Content

I tested this and found that the supported markdown format is quite limited, so don't get your hopes up too much

def send_markdown(md_file):
    with open(md_file, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
        print(chat.send(CHAT_ID, 'markdown', content=f.read()))

I grabbed a random snippet to send. The result looks like this

As you can see, even markdown tables aren't supported……

Rename the Group Chat

Not much to say here

def rename_chat(new_name):
    print(chat.update(CHAT_ID, name=new_name))
    send_text(f'群聊名称已修改为：{new_name}')

Invite Users

def invite(user_id):
    print(chat.update(CHAT_ID, add_user_list=[user_id]))
    send_text(f'邀请用户：{user_id}')

OK

OK, that's it—all written. Pretty simple

There are quite a few scenarios for using WeCom push notifications. For example, add a webhook in Sentry monitoring so that when a project error is detected, the error info gets pushed to the group, making it easy to stay on top of project errors at any time~

Another use case we currently have is pushing some reports to the group. As you can see, these tables are all in image format (can't be helped—WeCom doesn't support full markdown……)

The result looks like this

Oh right, as for generating table images with Python, I'll write (fluff) another post next time. I'm out~