Configuration properties#

A bot needs some parameters to be set to properly work. In this section, you will find all of them, and we will explain you how to load them in the bot.

A bot Property has a section, a name, a type and a default value (for when the property is not defined by the bot developer).

Loading properties#

You can define your bot properties in 2 different ways:

  • Using a configuration `.ini` file: It is a file containing all the bot properties. Let’s see an example config.ini file:

[websocket_platform]
websocket.host = localhost
websocket.port = 8765
streamlit.host = localhost
streamlit.port = 5000

[telegram_platform]
telegram.token = YOUR-BOT-TOKEN

[nlp]
nlp.language = en
nlp.region = US
nlp.timezone = Europe/Madrid
nlp.stemmer = True
nlp.intent_threshold = 0.4

Now you have to load the file into the chatbot:

bot = Bot('example_bot')
bot.load_properties('config.ini')

  • Setting individual properties: You can also set (and get) properties individually from the bot code.

from besser.bot.nlp import NLP_LANGUAGE
...
bot = Bot('example_bot')
bot.set_property(NLP_LANGUAGE, 'es')
...
language = bot.get_property(NLP_LANGUAGE)

Note

When you try to get a property that has not been previously set, it will return its default value.

You can also create your own properties:

from besser.bot.core.property import Property
...
FACEBOOK_PROFILE = Property('facebook', 'facebook.profile', str, 'https://www.facebook.com/foo')
...
bot.set_property(FACEBOOK_PROFILE, 'https://www.facebook.com/john_doe')

Next, let’s see all the built in properties, divided by sections.

NLP#

Definition of the bot properties within the nlp (Natural Language Processing) section

besser.bot.nlp.NLP_INTENT_THRESHOLD = <besser.bot.core.property.Property object>#

The threshold for the Intent Classification problem. If none of its predictions have a score greater than the threshold, it will be considered that no intent was detected with enough confidence (and therefore, moving to a fallback scenario).

name: nlp.intent_threshold

type: float

default value: 0.4

besser.bot.nlp.NLP_LANGUAGE = <besser.bot.core.property.Property object>#

The chatbot language. This is the expected language the users will talk to the chatbot. Using another language may affect the quality of some NLP processes.

The list of available languages can be found at snowballstemmer. Note that luxembourgish (lb) is also partially supported, as the language can be chosen, yet the stemmer is still a work in progress.

Languages must be written in ISO 639-1 format (e.g., ‘en’ for English)

name: nlp.language

type: str

default value: en

besser.bot.nlp.NLP_REGION = <besser.bot.core.property.Property object>#

The language region. If specified, it can improve some NLP process You can find a list of regions here.

name: nlp.region

type: str

default value: US

besser.bot.nlp.NLP_STEMMER = <besser.bot.core.property.Property object>#

Weather to use a stemmer or not. Stemming is the process of reducing inflected (or sometimes derived) words to their word stem, base or root form.

For example ‘games’ and ‘gaming’ are stemmed to ‘game’.

It can improve the NLP process by generalizing user inputs.

name: nlp.stemmer

type: bool

default value: True

besser.bot.nlp.NLP_TIMEZONE = <besser.bot.core.property.Property object>#

The timezone. It is used for datetime-related tasks, e.g., to get the current datetime. A list of timezones can be found here.

name: nlp.timezone

type: str

default value: Europe/Madrid

WebSocket Platform#

Definition of the bot properties within the websocket_platform section:

besser.bot.platforms.websocket.STREAMLIT_HOST = <besser.bot.core.property.Property object>#

The Streamlit UI host address. If you are using our default UI, you must define its address where you can access and interact with the bot.

name: streamlit.host

type: str

default value: localhost

besser.bot.platforms.websocket.STREAMLIT_PORT = <besser.bot.core.property.Property object>#

The Streamlit UI address port. The Streamlit UI address is composed by a host name and a port

name: streamlit.port

type: int

default value: 5000

besser.bot.platforms.websocket.WEBSOCKET_HOST = <besser.bot.core.property.Property object>#

The WebSocket host address. A chatbot has a WebSocket server that has to establish connection with a WebSocket client.

name: websocket.host

type: str

default value: localhost

besser.bot.platforms.websocket.WEBSOCKET_PORT = <besser.bot.core.property.Property object>#

The WebSocket address port. The WebSocket address is composed by a host name and a port

name: websocket.port

type: int

default value: 8765

Telegram Platform#

Definition of the bot properties within the telegram_platform section:

besser.bot.platforms.telegram.TELEGRAM_TOKEN = <besser.bot.core.property.Property object>#

The Telegram Bot token. Used to connect to the Telegram Bot

type: string

default value: None

API References#