Knab

Knab is a versatile bot that can support various sources such as IRC, web pages, and the console. Originally designed as a replacement for infobot, it has evolved into a fully-functional modular bot that accepts events from any source. Its finely configurable behavior allows for each aspect of its functionality to be controlled by hot-pluggable modules. On top of that, new modules can be easily written, giving the bot the ability to behave according to its owner's preference.

Knab stands for "Knab is Not A Bot" and is a bottom-up implementation of a general-purpose bot that takes input text and provides replies based on it. It's commonly used as an IRC bot to do Google lookups, dictionary definitions, weather checking, and general fact remembering. Knab is entirely written in Perl and can run on any platform that supports it.

What sets Knab apart from other bots is its modularity. Everything is a module that can be enabled or disabled, making it source-independent. Whether the source is IRC, the console, a web interface, a network socket, or Jabber, it doesn't matter, as long as a module has been created for it. Furthermore, the modules are hot-pluggable, meaning they can be loaded and unloaded while the bot is still running.