This example demonstrates embedding RiveScript in a Python web app, accessible via a JSON endpoint.

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

Open a shell into the eg/json-server directory. It's recommended to use a virtualenv when working with Python apps, so these example steps assume this is the case.

$ cd eg/json-server

# Make a virtualenv with virtualenvwrapper
$ mkvirtualenv json-test

# Install the requirements for this test app
(json-test)$ pip install -r requirements.txt

# And run it!
(json-test)$ python server.py
 * Running on http://0.0.0.0:5000/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)

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.

This simple Flask 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).

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.

$ curl -i \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -X POST -d '{"message": "Hello bot", "vars": {"name": "Soandso"}, "username": "soandso"}' \
     http://localhost:5000/reply
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 708
Server: Werkzeug/0.11.3 Python/2.7.9
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 21:48:43 GMT

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