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Create a Conversation Learner model using Node.js

Conversation Learner reduces the complexity of building bots. It enables a hybrid development work-flow allowing hand-written code and machine learning to reduce the amount of code required to write bots. Certain fixed parts of your model, such as checking if the user is logged in, or making an API request to check store inventory, can still be coded. However, other changes in state and action selection can be learned from example dialogs given by the domain expert or developer.

Invitation required

An invitation is required to access Project Conversation Learner.

Project Conversation Learner consists of an SDK you add to your bot, and a cloud service which the SDK accesses for machine learning. At present, access to the Project Conversation Leaner cloud service requires an invitation. If you haven't been invited already, request an invitation. If you have not received an invitation, you will be unable to access the cloud API.

Prerequisites

  • Node 8.5.0 or higher and npm 5.3.0 or higher. Install from https://nodejs.org.

  • LUIS authoring key:

    1. Log into https://www.luis.ai.

    2. Click on your name in the upper right, then on "settings"

    3. Authoring key is shown on the resulting page

    (Your LUIS authoring key serves 2 roles. First, it will serve as your Conversation Learner authoring key. Second, Conversation Learner uses LUIS for entity extraction; the LUIS authoring key is used to create LUIS models on your behalf)

  • Google Chrome web browser. Install from https://www.google.com/chrome/index.html.

  • git. Install from https://git-scm.com/downloads.

  • VSCode. Install from https://code.visualstudio.com/. Note this is recommended, not required.

Quick start

  1. Install and build:

    git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/ConversationLearner-Samples cl-bot-01
cd cl-bot-01
npm install
npm run build

    [!NOTE] During npm install, you can ignore this error if it occurs: gyp ERR! stack Error: Can't find Python executable

  2. Configure:

    Create a file called .env in the directory cl-bot-01. The contents of the file should be:

    NODE_ENV=development
LUIS_AUTHORING_KEY=<your LUIS authoring key>

  3. Start bot:

    npm start

    This runs the generic empty bot in cl-bot-01/src/app.ts.

  4. Open browser to http://localhost:3978

You're now using Conversation Learner and can create and teach a Conversation Learner model.

Note

At launch, Project Conversation Learner is available by invitation. If http://localhost:3978/ui shows an HTTP 403 error, this means your account has not been invited. Please request an invitation.

Tutorials, demos, and switching between bots

The instructions above started the generic empty bot. To run a tutorial or demo bot instead:

  1. If you have the Conversation Learner web UI open, return to the list of models at http://localhost:3978/ui/home.

  2. If another bot is running (like npm start or npm run demo-pizza), stop it. You do not need to stop the UI process, or close the web browser.

  3. Run a demo bot from the command line (step 2 above). Demos include:

    npm run tutorial-general
npm run tutorial-entity-detection
npm run tutorial-session-callbacks
npm run tutorial-api-calls
npm run tutorial-hybrid
npm run demo-password
npm run demo-pizza
npm run demo-storage

  4. If you're not already, switch to the Conversation Learner web UI in Chrome by loading http://localhost:3978/ui/home.

  5. Click on "Import tutorials" and select the demo model in the Conversation Learner UI that corresponds to the demo you started.

Source files for the demos are in cl-bot-01/src/demos

Create a bot which includes back-end code

  1. If you have the Conversation Learner web UI open, return to the list of models at http://localhost:3978/ui/home.

  2. If a bot is running (like npm run demo-pizza), stop it. You do not need to stop the UI process, or close the web browser.

  3. If desired, edit code in cl-bot-01/src/app.ts.

  4. Rebuild and re-start bot:

    npm run build
npm start

  5. If you're not already, switch to the Conversation Learner web UI in Chrome by loading http://localhost:3978/ui/home.

  6. Create a new Conversation Learner model in the UI, and start teaching.

  7. To make code changes in cl-bot-01/src/app.ts, repeat the steps above, starting from step 2.

VSCode

In VSCode, there are run configurations for each demo, and for the "Empty bot" in cl-bot-01/src/app.ts. Open the cl-bot-01 folder in VSCode.

Advanced configuration

There is a template .env.example file shows what environment variables you may set to configure the samples.

You can adjust these ports to avoid conflicts between other services running on your machine by adding a .env file to root of project:

cp .env.example .env

This uses the standard configuration, which lets you run your bot locally, and start using Conversation Learner. (Later on, to deploy your bot to the Bot Framework, some edits to this file will be needed.)

Support

Contributing

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

Source repositories

Next steps

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Hello world