Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
130 lines (87 loc) · 4.86 KB

README.md

File metadata and controls

130 lines (87 loc) · 4.86 KB
Raw

crisis-communication-chat-bot

Chat bot on covid-19 crisis communication This tutorial takes you through building a simple Node.js application that is connected to a COVID-19 chatbot using the Watson Assistant APIs. The steps are taken from this assistant-simple repository and adopted for 2020 Call for Code challenge. You can use this tutorial as a starting template for the COVID-19 challenge.

Learning objectives

In this tutorial, you will:

  1. Learn how to create a simple Node.js application.
  2. Connect the application to a chatbot using the IBM Watson Assistant APIs.
  3. Test and run the application locally.
  4. Deploy the application on IBM Cloud as a Cloud Foundry application.

Here is a demo of the final application:

Prerequisites

  1. Sign up for an IBM Cloud account.
  2. Download the IBM Cloud CLI. You will use it to push your Node.js application to the cloud.
  3. You should already have a Watson Assistant service created when you deployed the COVID bot. You need to get the credentials from that chatbot to use in your Node.js application:
    • Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
    • Go to resources and open your Watson Assistant service instance.
    • You will be taken to Watson Assistant launch page. Click Service Credentials to view the service credentials. Watson Assistant Credentials
    • You will use these credentials to populate the .env file when configuring the application below. Copy and save the JSON somewhere or leave this window open.

Estimated time

This tutorial will take you about 30 minutes to complete.

Steps

The following steps assume that you have created an assistant, imported the COVID skills, and have the Watson Assistant service credentials available.

Configuring the application

  1. Clone the repository and cd into starter-kit/covid-simple.

  2. Copy the .env.example file to a file called .env

    cp .env.example .env

  3. Open the .env file and add the service credentials that you obtained in the previous step.

    The following example .env file configures the apikey and url for a Watson Assistant service instance hosted in the US East region:

    ASSISTANT_IAM_APIKEY=X4rbi8vwZmKpXfowaS3GAsA7vdy17Qhxxxxxxxx
ASSISTANT_URL=https://gateway-wdc.watsonplatform.net/assistant/api
    • If your service instance uses username and password credentials, add the ASSISTANT_USERNAME and ASSISTANT_PASSWORD variables to the .env file.

    The following example .env file configures the username, password, and url for a Watson Assistant service instance hosted in the US South region:

    ASSISTANT_USERNAME=522be-7b41-ab44-dec3-xxxxxxxx
ASSISTANT_PASSWORD=A4Z5BdGENxxxx
ASSISTANT_URL=https://gateway.watsonplatform.net/assistant/api

    However, if your credentials contain an IAM API key, copy the apikey and url to the relevant fields.

      {
    "apikey": "ca2905e6-7b5d-4408-9192-xxxxxxxx",
    "iam_apikey_description": "Auto generated apikey during resource-key ...",
    "iam_apikey_name": "auto-generated-apikey-62b71334-3ae3-4609-xxxxxxxx",
    "iam_role_crn": "crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam::::serviceRole:Manager",
    "iam_serviceid_crn": "crn:v1:bluemix:public:iam...",
    "url": "https://gateway-syd.watsonplatform.net/assistant/api"
  }
     ASSISTANT_IAM_APIKEY=ca2905e6-7b5d-4408-9192-xxxxxxxx

  4. Add the ASSISTANT_ID to the previous properties:

    ASSISTANT_ID=522be-7b41-ab44-dec3-xxxxxxxx

Running locally

  1. Install the dependencies:

    npm install

  2. Run the application:

    npm start

  3. View the application in a browser at localhost:3000.

Deploy to IBM Cloud as a Cloud Foundry application

  1. Log in to IBM Cloud with the IBM Cloud CLI:

    ibmcloud login

  2. Target a Cloud Foundry organization and space:

    ibmcloud target --cf

  3. Edit the manifest.yml file. Change the name field to something unique.
    For example, - name: covid-crisis-communication-chatbot-yourname.

  4. Deploy the application

    ibmcloud app push

  5. View the application online at the app URL. For example, covid-crisis-communication-chatbot-yourname.mybluemix.net.

Take on COVID-19