81.skills-skilldialog

SkillDialog

Bot Framework v4 Skills with Dialogs sample.

This bot has been created using the Bot Framework; it shows how to use a skill dialog from a root bot.

This sample is a Spring Boot app and uses the Azure CLI and azure-webapp Maven plugin to deploy to Azure.

Prerequisites

• Java 1.8+
• Install Maven
• An account on Azure if you want to deploy to Azure.

Key concepts in this sample

The solution uses dialogs, within both a parent bot (dialog-root-bot) and a skill bot (dialog-skill-bot). It demonstrates how to post activities from the parent bot to the skill bot and return the skill responses to the user.

• dialog-root-bot: this project shows how to consume a skill bot using a SkillDialog. It includes:
  • A Main Dialog that can call different actions on a skill using a SkillDialog:
    • To send events activities.
    • To send message activities.
    • To cancel a SkillDialog using CancelAllDialogs that automatically sends an EndOfConversation activity to remotely let a skill know that it needs to end a conversation.
  • A sample AdapterWithErrorHandler adapter that shows how to handle errors, terminate skills and send traces back to the emulator to help debugging the bot.
  • A sample AllowedSkillsClaimsValidator class that shows how to validate that responses sent to the bot are coming from the configured skills.
  • A Logger Middleware that shows how to handle and log activities coming from a skill.
  • A SkillConfiguration class that can load skill definitions from the DefaultConfig class.
  • An Application class that can load the skill definitions from the application.properties file.
• dialog-skill-bot: this project shows a modified CoreBot that acts as a skill. It receives event and message activities from the parent bot and executes the requested tasks. This project includes:
  • An ActivityRouterDialog that handles Event and Message activities coming from a parent and performs different tasks.
    • Event activities are routed to specific dialogs using the parameters provided in the Values property of the activity.
    • Message activities are sent to LUIS if configured and trigger the desired tasks if the intent is recognized.
  • A sample ActivityHandler that uses the run method on DialogExtensions.
  • A sample SkillAdapterWithErrorHandler adapter that shows how to handle errors, terminate the skills, send traces back to the emulator to help debugging the bot and send EndOfConversation messages to the parent bot with details of the error.
  • An Application class that shows how to register the different skill components.
  • A sample skill manifest that describes what the skill can do.

To try this sample

• Create a bot registration in the azure portal for the dialog-skill-bot and update dialog-skill-bot/src/main/resources/application.properties with the MicrosoftAppId and MicrosoftAppPassword of the new bot registration
• Create a bot registration in the azure portal for the dialog-root-bot and update dialog-root-bot/src/main/resources/application.properties with the MicrosoftAppId and MicrosoftAppPassword of the new bot registration
• Update the BotFrameworkSkills section in dialog-root-bot/src/main/resources/application.properties with the AppId for the skill you created in the previous step.
• (Optionally) Add the dialog-root-bot MicrosoftAppId to the AllowedCallers comma separated list in dialog-skill-bot/src/main/resources/application.properties

Testing the bot using Bot Framework Emulator

Bot Framework Emulator is a desktop application that allows bot developers to test and debug their bots on localhost or running remotely through a tunnel.

• Install the latest Bot Framework Emulator from here

Connect to the bot using Bot Framework Emulator

• Launch Bot Framework Emulator
• File -> Open Bot
• Enter a Bot URL of http://localhost:3978/api/messages, the MicrosoftAppId and MicrosoftAppPassword for the dialog-root-bot

Deploy the bot to Azure

To learn more about deploying a bot to Azure, see Deploy your bot to Azure for a complete list of deployment instructions.