Bot Framework v4 custom dialogs bot sample
This bot has been created using Microsoft Bot Framework, it shows how to sub-class the Dialog
class to create different bot control mechanism like simple slot filling.
BotFramework provides a built-in base class called Dialog
. By subclassing Dialog
, developers can create new ways to define and control dialog flows used by the bot.
- Node.js version 10.14 or higher
# determine node version node --version
- Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/botbuilder-samples.git
- In a terminal, navigate to
samples/javascript_nodejs/19.custom-dialogs
cd samples/javascript_nodejs/19.custom-dialogs
- Install modules
npm install
- Start the bot
npm start
Microsoft 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 Bot Framework Emulator version 4.2.0 or greater from here
- Launch Bot Framework Emulator
- File -> Open Bot Configuration
- Navigate to
javascript_nodejs/21.custom-dialogs
folder - Select
custom-dialogs.bot
file
BotFramework provides a built-in base class called Dialog
. By subclassing Dialog, developers
can create new ways to define and control dialog flows used by the bot. By adhering to the
features of this class, developers will create custom dialogs that can be used side-by-side
with other dialog types, as well as built-in or custom prompts.
This example demonstrates a custom Dialog class called SlotFillingDialog
, which takes a
series of "slots" which define a value the bot needs to collect from the user, as well
as the prompt it should use. The bot will iterate through all of the slots until they are
all full, at which point the dialog completes.
After creating the bot and testing it locally, you can deploy it to Azure to make it accessible from anywhere. To deploy your bot to Azure:
# login to Azure
az login
# set you Azure subscription
az account set --subscription "<azure-subscription>"
# provision Azure Bot Services resources to host your bot
msbot clone services --name "<your_bot_name>" --code-dir "." --location westus --sdkLanguage "Node" --folder deploymentScripts/msbotClone --verbose
As you make changes to your bot running locally, and want to deploy those change to Azure Bot Service, you can publish those change using either publish.cmd
if you are on Windows or ./publish
if you are on a non-Windows platform. The following is an example of publishing
# run the publish helper (non-Windows) to update Azure Bot Service. Use publish.cmd if running on Windows
./publish
To learn more about deploying a bot to Azure, see Deploy your bot to Azure for a complete list of deployment instructions.
- Bot Framework Documentation
- Bot Basics
- Dialog class reference
- WaterfallDialog class reference
- Manage complex conversation flows with dialogs
- Activity processing
- Azure Bot Service Introduction
- Azure Bot Service Documentation
- Azure CLI
- msbot CLI
- Azure Portal
- Language Understanding using LUIS
- Restify
- dotenv