Inconsistency in initial project setup for actions running via rasa or via sdk

[erohmensing]

Currently, when running an action server with rasa run actions, the default looks in actions.py in the base of your project directory. actions.py is created there as part of the initial project.

However, if you build in docker, the default place to find actions is in actions/actions.py. https://github.com/RasaHQ/rasa-sdk/blob/master/Dockerfile#L40

This makes it confusing -- when teaching the user to create custom actions in Docker, we have to tell them to create the new folder with an actions file, when actions.py already exists: https://rasa.com/docs/rasa/user-guide/how-to-deploy/#creating-a-custom-action

This seems to also have caused confusion here: RasaHQ/rasa-sdk#140 (comment)

We should make the default behavior consistent. I'm partial to having an actions folder as it's probably quite normal for a larger actions file to reference other files. However that will probably involve changing a decent amount of references in e.g. tutorials.

[akelad]

@erohmensing are you working on this atm? if not, please unassign

[tmbo]

I'd agree, let's change the default project (rasa init) as well as the examples to use an actions folder instead of a file. so the resulting structure should be:

moodbot/
├── domain.yml
├── actions/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── actions.py
├── ...

I think there might be a __init__.py at a rasa bots root directory by default (so in moodbot), I am not sure we need that one

[wochinge]

@erohmensing Imo this needs to go in before the RC next week. Do you have this on your radar or should our squad take this over?

[akelad]

i'm gonna speak for our team and say that we are slammed with customers + 2.0 docs at the moment, so it'd be nice if your squad takes it :)

[wochinge]

@alwx @tczekajlo is it ok for you if we take on this time critical task? Rick is also back onboard then, so I think we do this despite our decoupling commitment

[tczekajlo]

@alwx @tczekajlo is it ok for you if we take on this time critical task? Rick is also back onboard then, so I think we do this despite our decoupling commitment

I'm ok with that, not sure If I'm the best person to do this if it's time-critical task though 😄

[wochinge]

It's time critical in a sense that it should be done until next week. I'll add it to our board.

[akelad]

reminder to update the CLI documentation and others on initial project setup