Chatbase integration for Alexa custom skill

Installation

npm install @boxoffice/alexa-chatbase-interceptors

Usage

Simply initialize the interceptors with your Chatbase API key and add them to your skill's lambda.

const Alexa = require('ask-sdk-core')
const chatbase = require('@boxoffice/alexa-chatbase-interceptors')

const {
  ChatbaseRequestInterceptor,
  ChatbaseResponseInterceptor,
  ChatbaseInterceptingErrorHandler
} = chatbase(process.env.CHATBASE_API_KEY)

// ... declare your handlers and interceptors

module.exports.handler = Alexa.SkillBuilders.custom()

  // ChatbaseRequestInterceptor aggregates data from the request to track
  // the user's request. The order of the interceptors does not matter.
  .addRequestInterceptors(
    ...requestInterceptors,
    ChatbaseRequestInterceptor
  )

  // ChatbaseInterceptingErrorHandler does not actually handle errors.
  // It uses the canHandle method to set the not_handled flag on the user
  // request. For this reason, you should set it as the first error
  // handler to intercept all errors.
  .addErrorHandlers(
    ChatbaseInterceptingErrorHandler,
    ...errorHandlers
  )

  // ChatbaseResponseInterceptor aggregates data from the response and
  // sends all tracking information to your Chatbase app. To be as accurate
  // as possible in terms of response time, it should be put last.
  .addResponseInterceptors(
    ...responseInterceptors,
    ChatbaseResponseInterceptor
  )

  // After that, nothing changes
  .addRequestHandlers(...requestHandlers)
  .lambda()

Optionally, if you want to set a response intent or mark a request as not handled (see the Chatbase not_handled concept), a request attributes is available. By default, the only request marked as not handled are:

• SessionEndedRequest with ERROR as reason
• IntentRequest with AMAZON.FallbackIntent as intent name

const SendTomatoHandler = {
  canHandle(handlerInput) {
    return Alexa.getRequestType(handlerInput.requestEnvelope) === 'IntentRequest'
      && Alexa.getIntentName(handlerInput.requestEnvelope) === 'SingASongIntent',
  },
  handle(handlerInput) {
    // Set your skill's intent
    handlerInput
      .attributesManager.getRequestAttributes()
      .chatbase.setResponseIntent('SendTomato')

    // Proceed with sending a tomato
  }
}

const UnhandledRequestHandler = {
  canHandle() {
    return true
  },
  handle(handlerInput) {
    // Mark this user request as not handled
    handlerInput
      .attributesManager.getRequestAttributes()
      .chatbase.setRequestAsNotHandled()

    // Proceed with fixing the situation
  },
}

Options

You can provide custom options to the interceptors builder by passing on option oject after the API key. Here are the default options :

const chatbase = require('@boxoffice/alexa-chatbase-interceptors')

const options = {
  // The platform to use when pushing to events to chatbase
  // Platform can be used as a filter in Chatbase dashboard and should be use to differenciate
  // your live environment from your dev/staging one.
  platform: `alexa-${process.env.NODE_ENV || 'default'}`,
}

const interceptors = chatbase(process.env.CHATBASE_API_KEY, options)