JSON Server

This example demonstrates embedding RiveScript in a Nodejs web server, accessible via a JSON endpoint.

This uses Expressjs to create a super simple web server that accepts JSON POST requests to /reply and responds with JSON output.

Run the Example

# Build the JavaScript sources from the CoffeeScript first. Run these from
# the root of the rivescript-js repo.
$ npm install
$ grunt

# Then, from the eg/json-server directory, install the JSON server's
# dependencies (expressjs, etc.)
$ npm install

# And run the server.
$ node server.js

And then from another terminal, you can use curl to test the JSON endpoint for the chatbot. Or, you can use your favorite REST client.

API Documentation

This simple Express server only has one useful endpoint: POST /reply. All other endpoints will return simple usage instructions (basically, a curl command that you can paste into a terminal window).

POST /reply

Parameters (application/json):

{
	"username": "Soandso",
	"message": "Hello, bot!",
	"vars": {
		"name": "Soandso",
		"age": "10"
	}
}

The required parameters are username and message. You can provide vars to send along user variables.

Response:

{
	"status": "ok",
	"reply": "Hello human!",
	"vars": {
		"topic": "random",
		"name": "Soandso",
		"age": "10",
		"__history__": {},
		"__lastmatch__": "hello bot"
	}
}

The response includes status ("ok" or "error"), reply which is the bot's response, and vars which are the user variables. To keep state between requests, you should send back the vars data with the following request. For example if the first request said "my name is soandso", vars.name will be "Soandso" in the response. Passing the same vars back with the next request will cause the bot to "remember" the name, and be able to keep track of the user over multiple requests.

In case of error, a message key will contain the error message.

Example Output

curl -i \
   -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
   -X POST -d '{"username":"soandso","message":"hello bot"}' \
   http://localhost:2001/reply
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
X-Powered-By: Express
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 913
ETag: W/"391-AgDgznci+rSclUCAK4w2EA"
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2016 00:49:27 GMT
Connection: keep-alive

{
    "status": "ok",
    "reply": "How do you do. Please state your problem.",
    "vars": {
        "topic": "random",
        "__history__": {
            "input": [
                "hello bot",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined"
            ],
            "reply": [
                "How do you do. Please state your problem.",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined",
                "undefined"
            ]
        },
        "__lastmatch__": "(hello|hi|hey|howdy|hola|hai|yo) [*]",
        "__initialmatch__": "(hello|hi|hey|howdy|hola|hai|yo) [*]"
    }
}