Snips Manager [❗️DEPRECATED]

❗️ The SnipsManager project is now deprecated. We now offer a more native way to run intents actions with the snips-skills-server. A migration guide can be found here.

Notice of Deprecation

As of 30/04/2018, the snipsmanager project is now deprecated as the snips platform now offers a more native way to run skills actions. All skills written with snipsmanager can easily be ported to the snips-skills-server. It is also possible to run snipsmanager within snips-skills-server.

A migration guide can be found here.

Introduction

The Snips Manager is a tool for easily setting up and managing a Snips assistant.

A single configuration file, the Snipsfile, is required to create a Snips assistant. In it, you specify:

• The URL of your assistant model, as created in the Snips Console
• The lambdas you want to install
• Bindings between intents and lambdas
• If required, additional parameters for your lambdas, such as an API key or the address of a lamp
• Various configuration parameters, such as language and logging preferences.

Check out Awesome Snips, a curated list of Snips assistants, lambdas and other resources to get you started.

Installation

Debian package

Snips Manager is available as an apt-get package. To install it, run the following:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install -y dirmngr
$ sudo bash -c 'echo "deb https://raspbian.snips.ai/$(lsb_release -cs) stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/snips.list'
$ sudo apt-key adv --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys D4F50CDCA10A2849
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install -y snipsmanager

Python package

Snips Manager also comes as a pip package. This however requires installing a few dependencies beforehand. Start by running:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install git python-pip libsdl-mixer1.2 libusb-1.0 \
    python-pyaudio libsdl1.2-dev cython cython3 libudev-dev \
    python-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev \
    libsdl-ttf2.0-dev libsmpeg-dev python-numpy libportmidi-dev \
    libswscale-dev libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev \
    portaudio19-dev nodejs build-essential -y

Next, create a Python virtual environment to avoid conflicts with existing dependencies, and to be able to run Snips Manager without root privileges:

$ sudo pip install --upgrade virtualenv
$ virtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python2.7 snips
$ source snips/bin/activate
(snips) $ pip install pip --upgrade

You may replace snips with any name for your virtual environment.

We are ready to install the snipsmanager package:

(snips) $ pip install snipsmanager

macOS

On macOS, Snips Manager is also available as a pip package. To install, Portaudio, Pyaudio and SDL are needed:

$ sudo easy_install pip
$ brew install portaudio
$ brew install sdl
$ pip install --global-option='build_ext' \
    --global-option='-I/usr/local/include' \
    --global-option='-L/usr/local/lib' pyaudio

Next, like with Raspbian, we create a Python virtual environment in which Snips Manager will be run:

$ sudo pip install --upgrade virtualenv
$ virtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python2.7 snips
$ source snips/bin/activate
(snips) $ pip install pip --upgrade

Snips Manager can now be installed:

(snips) $ pip install snipsmanager

Usage

Creating the Snipsfile

Start your project by creating a Snipsfile, which is where all the configuration is set. This is a simple text file, adhering to the YAML format. Here is a basic configuration:

assistant_url: <YOUR ASSISTANT URL>
default_location: Paris,fr
skills:
  - package_name: snipshue
    class_name: SnipsHue
    url: https://github.com/snipsco/snips-skill-hue
    params:
      hostname: <PHILIPS HUE IP>
      username: <PHILIPS HUE USERNAME>
      light_ids: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
    intents:
      - intent: ActivateLightColor
        action: "turn_on"
      - intent: DeactivateObject
        action: "turn_off"

For further explanations and examples, check out our Snipsfile Wiki.

Installing the lambdas

Next, setup the assistant by running the install command:

$ snipsmanager install

The snipsmanager service will automatically start on boot. You can also start it manually by running:

$ snipsmanager run

Contributing

Please see the Contribution Guidelines.

Copyright

This library is provided by Snips as Open Source software. See LICENSE.txt for more information.