Talkback

A declarative framework for chatbots and voice agent skills.

The Talkback framework allows you to create chatbots and voice agent skills. Using a declarative syntax, you can define apps that interact with conversational interfaces. The framework will provide integration with popular platforms, and provide built-in natural language processing.

Target Platforms

Voice Agents

• Amazon Alexa
• Microsoft Cortina
• Apple Siri
• Google Home

Messaging Platforms

• Facebook Messenger
• Slack
• Skype
• iMessage

Core Concepts

Intents

A Talkback app consists of one or more Intents. An Intent represents a user goal - something a user is attempting to accomplish. The developer can define any number of phrases that indicate the Intent, in an Intent Map that accompanies the Intent. Talkback will train it's built-in natural language processor (NLP) with the phrases in the Intent Map.

Sessions

When an Intent is invoked, it is passed a Session. A Session represents the specific interaction with the conversational platform. The business logic of the Intent communicates with the user via the Session.

A Session can have associated Metadata, which can inform the Intent to particulars about the interaction.

A Session has several built-in methods of interaction that an Intent can use to communicate with the user:

• An Interview is a set of one or more questions sent to the user, for which their answers are collected. It can be thought of as analgeous to a form on a web or mobile app. The user will experience the Interview as a series of questions asked by the conversational interface.
• An Intent may use a Session to simply Speak to the user. This can be in the form of text or audio (depending on the underlying platform), or may in some cases allow the attachment of a media file like an image.
• An Interview question or Speaking may be accompanied by Options: pre-defined choices for the user that directly trigger action.

Example Code

from talkback.core import Intent

class PayBill(Intent):
    """User wants to pay their phone bill."""
    def invoke(self,session):
        user_id = session.meta['user_id']
        total = get_bill_total(user_id)
        pay_options = PayOptions(user_id)
        session.speak("Your balance is %f. Do you want to pay your bill?" % total,options=pay_options)