HSS - Skill

Library for creating skills based on the Hermes Skill Server.

Installation

Simply use pip:

pip3 install hss_skill

Overview

The hss_skill package contains tools for fast and easy development of skills for the Hermes Skill Server. The goal is to let skill developers only care about their own skill implementation, while the internal stuff (communication with the skill-server, reading configuration, etc) is provided out-of-the-box by the hss_skill package.

The package provides a base class for skills BaseSkill which does all the incovenient stuff, like communication with the skill server, reading configuration file etc.

Abstract methods

When developing skills, a subclass of BaseSkill must be implemented, which overwrites two abstract methods:

• get_intentlist - shall return a list of intents handled by your skill
• handle - the actual entry point for handling intents of your skill

Done-method

In addition, BaseSkill provides the done-method, which should be called after the intent has been fully handled. This method also allows to send response-messages, which will then be forwarded to the TTS of your voice assistant. This function has the following signature:

done(session_id, site_id, intent_name, response_message, lang)

Parameter explanation:

• session_id - same as provided by the handle method
• site_id - same as provided by the handle method
• intent_name - same as provided by the handle method
• response_message - optional: your message which shall be sent to the TTS
• lang - optional: language code which will be passed as well to the TTS (defaults to en_GB)

main.py

Skills must provide the file main.py, which is the file the skill-server is going to run. This file should create an instance of your skill class, and then call the run method of the skill.

Configuration

hss_skill automatically read a configuration file config.ini if it is present in your skills root-folder. The configuration will be provided to the skill-class via self.config.

Dependencies

Further dependencies can be defined in the file requirements.txt which should at least contain the dependency to hss_skill.

Example

A minimum example of using hss_skill. The folder contents might look like:

• main.py
• myskill.py
• config.ini
• requirements.txt

main.py

import myskill

if __name__ == "__main__":
    skill = myskill.WeatherSkill()
    skill.run()

myskill.py

from hss_skill import hss

class WeatherSkill(hss.BaseSkill):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()   # important, call super's constructor

    def get_intentlist(self):
        return ["howAreYou"]

    def handle(self, request, session_id, site_id, intent_name, slots):
        return self.done(session_id, site_id, intent_name, "Thanks, I am fine")

requirements.txt

hss_skill>=0.1.2
certifi
geopy>=1.20.0
requests>=2.22.0

Skill installation

Please refer to Hermes Skill Server.