heather-fillerup-miller/assistant-intermediate

An intermediate example of Watson Assistant in a Node.js application

🚀 Watson Assistant (formerly Conversation) Sample Application

This Node.js app demonstrates the Watson Assistant service in a simple interface engaging in simulated banking tasks, utilising features such as cloud functions and actions.

You can view a demo of this app.

Please note this app uses the Watson Assistant V2 API. To access a version of the V1 app, you can go to v1.1.0.

If you need more information about the V1 API, you can go to the Watson Assistant V1 API page.

Prerequisites

1. Sign up for an IBM Cloud account.
2. Download the IBM Cloud CLI.
3. Create an instance of the Watson Assistant service and get your credentials:
   • Go to the Watson Assistant page in the IBM Cloud Catalog.
   • Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
   • Click Create.
   • Click Show to view the service credentials.
   • Copy the apikey value.
   • Copy the url value.

Configuring the application

1. In your IBM Cloud console, open the Watson Assistant service instance

2. Click the Import workspace icon in the Watson Assistant service tool. Specify the location of the workspace JSON file in your local copy of the app project:

   <project_root>/training/banking_workspace.json

3. Select Everything (Intents, Entities, and Dialog) and then click Import. The car dashboard workspace is created.

4. Click the menu icon in the upper-right corner of the workspace tile, and then select View details.

5. Click the icon to copy the workspace ID to the clipboard.

   

6. In the application folder, copy the .env.example file and create a file called .env

   cp .env.example .env
   

7. Open the .env file and add the service credentials that you obtained in the previous step. The Watson SDK automaticaly locates the correct enviromental variables for either username, password, and url or the apikey and url credentials found in the .env file.

   Example .env file that configures the apikey and url for a Watson Assistant service instance hosted in the US East region:

   ASSISTANT_IAM_APIKEY=X4rbi8vwZmKpXfowaS3GAsA7vdy17Qh7km5D6EzKLHL2
   ASSISTANT_URL=https://gateway-wdc.watsonplatform.net/assistant/api
   

8. Add the ASSISTANT_ID to the previous properties

   ASSISTANT_ID=522be-7b41-ab44-dec3-g1eab2ha73c6
   

Running locally

1. Install the dependencies

   npm install
   

2. Run the application

   npm start
   

3. View the application in a browser at localhost:3000

Deploying to IBM Cloud as a Cloud Foundry Application

1. Login to IBM Cloud with the IBM Cloud CLI

   ibmcloud login
   

2. Target a Cloud Foundry organization and space.

   ibmcloud target --cf
   

3. Edit the manifest.yml file. Change the name field to something unique.
   For example, - name: my-app-name.

4. Deploy the application

   ibmcloud app push
   

5. View the application online at the app URL.
   For example: https://my-app-name.mybluemix.net

License

This sample code is licensed under Apache 2.0.
Full license text is available in LICENSE.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.

Open Source @ IBM

Find more open source projects on the IBM Github Page.