Conversation Design with Voxable: API, CLI, & Plugins

In our previous product post, we reviewed how conversation designers can use Voxable to define contexts and manage complex data in their designs. Here I’ll cover how developers can use Voxable to extract content and data from conversation designs. 

One of the most important requirements of conversation designs (and designers) is to clearly communicate specifications with the developer(s) responsible for implementing the voice or chat app. Developers need an easy way to extract content and data from conversation designs so they can:

• Create initial natural language understanding (NLU) models
• Generate structured application data and content
• Export content for review and use in implementation such as a content management system (CMS)
• Use designs as a basis for automated tests

API & CLI

Keeping the ease of designer-developer hand-off in mind, the Voxable team built an application programming interface (API) and an open-source command-line interface (CLI). The API gives developers direct access to structured project data from conversation designs created in Voxable. The open-source CLI provides developers with an easy way to work with that data. 

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Plugins

Voxable is also working with the conversational AI community to establish a library of CLI plugins that connect Voxable projects to popular conversational platforms. These plugins extend the functionality of the Voxable CLI, allowing developers to transform Voxable conversation designs into a variety of useful formats.

The Voxable CLI plugin for Bespoken transforms Voxable conversation designs into automated tests for the Bespoken voice and chat testing platform. Razvan Dinu, CEO of RoboSelf, also submitted the first pull request to the Voxable CLI repository, adding a plugin that transforms Voxable projects into RoboSelf’s colang conversational AI modeling language.

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As we expand Voxable’s set of plugins, we’d love to hear from users about how they’d like to leverage the data in their conversation designs. Want us to add a specific platform or support a feature? Have the technical folks on your team submit a pull request! We’re always looking to partner with more conversational AI platforms; so, please get in touch if you think a collaboration makes sense.

Developers and more technical users can read more about the Voxable API, CLI, and plugins on Voxable’s Technical Docs site and check out the Voxable Technical Community on GitHub. The Voxable Technical Community is a great way for technical users to interact with each other and the Voxable team, show off work, get questions answered, and find help building the next Voxable plugin.

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Regardless of what conversational AI experience you’re building, Voxable will streamline your conversation design. We believe the way to make conversational technology more usable for everyone starts with a place where teams can create, collaborate, and iterate on conversation designs. Try Voxable for free.