Snips Manager

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 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"