ChatBot
Tech stack Front-End: React Back-End: Express, NodeJS, MongoDB NLP: DialogFlow(google service) Host: Heroku
Building Blocks FrontEnd: . User experience . Get input from user . Display response from bot DialogFlow: . Parse natural language queries . Return intents, actions, parameters, and contexts BackEnd: . Query DialogFlow . Handle actions received from DialogFlow . Save and retrieve information by querying DB . Connect with other API resources . Authentication . Return response to frontend(bot)
Development stages . Create a DialogFlow agent: DialogFlow( Module with all the intents that our app would need to recognize. Intents are the pre-defined or developer defined components of agents that process the user requests) . Create server side app: NodeJS, Express, . Deploy to Heroku: Heroku, GIT . Connect server side app and DialogFlow agent. Create endpoints: Google projects, service accounts, API . Create frontend: React . Support simple message, cards, quick replies: DialogFlow, React . Connect chatbot with a databaseMongoDB, Mongoose . Deploy to Heroku: Development and Production environment
Dialogflow transforms input string, events, audio to intent and action, parameters and response
Entities extract parameter values from natural language input(helps to get parameters out of input string). They are pre-defined words, objects we need from conversation(user string). Entities are not needed for every possible concept mentioned in the agent, only those needed for the actions for the backend app. User entitites can be redefined on a session ID level allowing for specifice concepts like a user's playlist.
Set-up
Install node from web
Install Express:
npm init
npm install express --save
Install Heroku CLI
Heroku Deployment
npx create-react-app client
Install Diagflow
npm install dialogflow --save
Set Environment Variables
Bash:
export <PATH_TO_JSON_FILE_CONTAINING_KEY_OBTAINED_FROM_SERVICE_ACCOUNT>
Windows:
set GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/<PATH_TO_JSON_FILE_CONTAINING_KEY_OBTAINED_FROM_SERVICE_ACCOUNT>;%PATH%
Start App: nodemon run backend