How to make a request to a REST service from within a Dialogflow intent

[fitsie007]

I am trying to make a request to a REST API from within my intent, but it always throws an error:

MalformedResponse: Failed to parse Dialogflow response into AppResponse because of empty speech response

I am using spring-framework RestTemplate to send the request as follows.

@ForIntent("process-greeting")
  public ActionResponse greetingProcessor(ActionRequest request) {
...
String givenName = (String) request.getParameter("given-name");
Greeting greeting = restTemplate.getForObject("https://fitzroi-rest-api-0525.appspot.com/rest/{name}", Greeting.class, givenName);
responseBuilder.add(greeting.getContent()); //this is a simple greeting like "Hello, Fitz"
}

Is this the right way to make a call to a REST service from within an Intent?
Also, how do I log custom error messages for debugging?

[taycaldwell]

Hi @fitsie007,

Our dialog-quotes-java sample provides a great example on how to make requests to external APIs and URLs. You can use that as an example.

Regarding logging - You can log using SLF4J, providing any underlying implementation you wish, such as log4j. The sample mentioned above also provides an example of this that you can use as a reference.