open-intent

====================

open-intent is a framework that helps you create and deploy your bots in minutes thanks to npm and docker. Open-intent will help you translate your user intents into actual business actions on messenger and your own website.

Please note that open-intent is only available on Linux for now.

Example

This is as simple as those two lines to start prototyping your bot

npm install -g open-intent
open-intent project create mychatbot

This command starts an instance of bot with model located in the mychatbot/res/ directory on your host. In mychatbot/config, you'll find the configuration files used to plug your bot in the available platforms. For now the only fully tested platform is Messenger but you can try the others at your own risks.

Once the configuration is done, you can test your bot right away with the following command:

open-intent project start mychatbot

Say 'hello' to your new bot! You can then edit the model or config files and the bot restarts automatically when files are saved.

You can also follow the tutorial to write your first bot and deploy it on heroku for free.

Your first bot model

3 files are required to describe a bot: the dictionary file, the model file and the user actions file. Below is the initial dictionary file you'll find in mychatbot/res/ when you create the bot. It is used to teach your bot what words and concepts it'll have to deal with:

{
  "entities": {
    "greetings": {
      "hello": ["hi", "yep", "yo", "hey"]
    },
    "food_type": {
      "pizza": [],
      "hamburger": ["big mac", "cheeseburger", "burger"],
      "salad": []
    },
    "yes": {
      "yes": []
    },
    "no": {
      "no": []
    }
  }
}

The model file is a description of a typical conversation your bot will have to handle. It is written with the Open-Intent Markup Language that is very close to natural language. It uses the entities in the dictionary to detect the user intents (an ordered list of entities). This is like teaching a little story that will drive the conversations of your user.

{
@root
    -Hello
        #greetings
    -Would you want to eat a pizza, a hamburger or a salad?
@get_food_type
    -Pizza, please.
        #get_food_type
        *I did not understand. Pizza, hamburger or salad?
    -Got it, you want _, right?
@yesno
    -Yes!
        #confirm
    -I'm ordering, it is gonna be _$.
@end
}

{
@yesno
    -No!
        #notunderstood
    -Tell me what you want. Pizza, hamburger or salad?
@get_food_type
}

Of course, there is a Javascript file to handle your business logic when actions (keyword prefixed with #) are triggered.

var food_type;

module.exports = function(handler) {
    handler.on("#get_food_type", function(intentVariables, sessionId, next) {
        var replyVariables = {};
        food_type = intentVariables['food_type0'];
        replyVariables['0'] = food_type;
        next(replyVariables);
    });

    handler.on("#confirm", function(intentVariables, sessionId, next) {
        var replyVariables = {};
        if(food_type == 'pizza') {
            replyVariables['0'] = '8';
        }
        else {
            replyVariables['0'] = '5';
        }
        next(replyVariables);
    });
};

This bot is a very simple one but there is a lot more in the open-intent framework. If you want to fully understand the model, we have created a tutorial to help you quickly learn the basics on how to create your first bot with open-intent in 5 minutes.

Documentation

The documentation can be found here and will help you learn how to use every feature of the open-intent framework.

Contributing to open-intent

Follow contributing file.

License

open-intent is licensed under the MIT License. The terms of the license are as follows:

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2016 - Clement Michaud, Sergei Kireev

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.