Flowstorm Socket V1

This page describes communication protocol between clients and the server web socket channel implementation provided by Core Application.

If you're just starting with you own implementation client implementation consider to use rather Flowstorm Socket V2 instead of this.

Web Socket is provided by Core Application on URI /socket

The Platform Cloud Core Runner service provides web socket on URL address wss://core.flowstorm.ai/socket

V1 Events

Client using Socket V1 should support following set of events

See the detailed list of Channel Events

Name	Description
Init	to initialise connection to server
Request	to send user request
InputAudioStreamOpen	to initiate input audio processing (ASR)
InputAudioStreamClose	to finish input audio processing
InputAudioStreamCancel	to cancel input audio prematurely

Following event types are emitted by server

Name	Description
Ready	to acknowledge initialisation from server side
Response	to send bot response
Recognized	to send text result of ASR
SessionStarted	to pass valid session ID to the client
SessionEnded	to inform client that session has ended and session ID is no more valid and should be forget

Communication Flow

The logic of client to server communication is following

Client	Server
Connection initiation or restoration
State Closed immediately after start	waiting for new connections
State Open when web socket connection established to the server	creates BotSocketAdapter object and waits for events
Sending event BotEvent.Init containing app key, sender identification and client requirements in object of type BotClientRequirements	verifies sender, if ok then sends BotEvent.Ready otherwise BotEvent.Error
Accepting events BotEvent.Ready > going to state Sleeping BotEvent.Error > showing error message text and going to state Failed
Conversation
When client reaches state Sleeping after start, it will be waiting for user input (pushing device button or keyboard ENTER key) OR (if auto start config param is set) will send event BotEvent.Request containing request object of class Request with user input.transcript = "#intro" version 2 expects that client propose sessionId (in opposite to v1 where sessionId was defined strictly by server) - server can accept it or set different - in both cases it will send BotEvent.SessionStarted event containing valid conversation sessionId to the client. This feature will allow to transfer user session from one client to another in the future (e.g. to go from hardware device to mobile and back)	sends event BotEvent.SessionStarted containing accepted or different sessionId which will be used for conversation session identification; afterwards starts with processing request and sending BotEvent.Response containing response object of class Response
Sending text messages = sending event BotEvent.Request containing request object of class Request with user input.transcript = "user text input"	processing request and sending BotEvent.Response containing response object of class Response
Accepting BotEvent.Response events going to the state Responding - depending on client configuration, response text can be shown, audio (speech synthesis or another audio track specified in response) can be played and/or image/video can be shown from URL(s) specified in response. When output is finished, clients goes to state Listening Server can also actively send BotEvent.Response when client is Sleeping to initiate conversation triggered by external circumstances (e.g. certain scheduled time, web hook etc.)
Audio Input for Speech-To-Text
When client is in Listening state and audio input is enabled, it sends event BotEvent.InputAudioStreamOpen	Server confirms to be ready to intercept and process audio input stream returning BotEvent.InputAudioStreamOpen event
Client streams audio binary data to the server	Server reads audio binary data passing them to the ASR (STT) service. When ASR is finished it sends BotEvent.Recognized event containing text transcript to the client and starts processing it
Client accepts event BotEvent.Recognized optionally showing text transcript to the user, going to state Processing. It also sends event BotEvent.InputAudioStreamClose to notify server that audio input has been closed on client side	Server release resources used to process input audio

Example of client-server communication

Connection Initiation

Client establishes web socket connection and is in Open state, so it can initiate it for future communication by Init event containing config parameters describing how STT (Speech-To-Text) and STT (Text-To-Speech) will be treated.

{
  "type": "Init",
  "key": "5ea05091a7a6757defffa479",
  "deviceId": "standalone_3C22FBBBAD22",
  "config": {
    "locale": "en",
    "zoneId": "Europe/Prague",
    "sttMode": "SingleUtterance",
    "sttSampleRate": 16000,
    "tts": "RequiredLinks",
    "returnSsml": false,
    "silenceTimeout": 5000
  }
}

Server confirms that it is ready for communication by Ready event, client goes to Sleeping state

{"type": "Ready"}

Conversation Request

Client initiates conversation upon user activity (e.g. pressing talk button) by Request event containing #intro action

Client can generate or setsessionId so it can attach to existing / previous session.

deviceId should be unique per hardware + software client combination (e.g. browser type with unique ID stored in local storage for web application, application ID + mobile phone ID for mobile clients, client software name combined with MAC address for standalone client appliances etc.)

{
  "type": "Request",
  "request": {
    "appKey": "5ea05091a7a6757defffa479",
    "deviceId": "standalone_3C22FBBBAD22",
    "sessionId": "abe55b84-2b6a-47bb-9e71-e12da1252321",
    "input": {
      "locale": "en_US",
      "zoneId": "Europe/Prague",
      "transcript": {
        "text": "#intro"
      }
    },
    "attributes": {
      "clientType": "standalone:1.0.0-SNAPSHOT"
    }
  }
}

Request can contain attributes describing client current state, e.g. client type, location, temperature, etc. To understand better how these client attributes can be used in server part of Platform programming model please visit Client Attributes page.

Conversation Response

Server responds by Response event and client goes to Responding state, playing output audio

{
  "type": "Response",
  "response": {
    "locale": "en",
    "items": [
      {
        "text": "What can I do for you, Tomas?",
        "ssml": null,
        "confidence": 1.0,
        "audio": "https://core.flowstorm.ai/file/tts/18e77858dc3701a543732d0962c9b5bf.mp3",
        "ttsConfig": {
          "provider": "Amazon",
          "locale": "en_US",
          "gender": "Female",
          "name": "Joanna",
          "engine": "neural"
        },
        "repeatable": true
      }
    ],
    "sessionEnded": false,
    "sleepTimeout": 0
  }
}

Speech Recognition

Client finished playing audio, it opens input audio by sending InputAudioStreamOpen event

{"type": "InputAudioStreamOpen"}

Server confirms that audio stream is open by sending InputAudioStreamOpen event in return. Client goes to Listening state and starts to send binary audio packets to the sockets.

{"type": "InputAudioStreamOpen"}

Server recognises speech in the input audio and sends it back to the client in Recognized event (so it can display input transcript to the user), client goes to Processing state

{"type": "Recognized", "text": "tell me about this place"}

Server generates response and sends it in Response event, client goes to Responding state, plays response audio (and optionally also displays response text)

{
  "type": "Response",
  "response": {
    "locale": "en",
    "items": [
      {
        "text": "Sorry, I can't see where you are located.",
        "ssml": null,
        "confidence": 1.0,
        "image": null,
        "video": null,
        "audio": "http://core.flowstorm.ai/file/tts/83afc721a3c36afd8acd12f027a19023.mp3",
        "code": null,
        "background": "",
        "ttsConfig": {
          "provider": "Amazon",
          "locale": "en_US",
          "gender": "Female",
          "name": "Joanna",
          "engine": "neural"
        },
        "repeatable": true
      }
    ],
    "sessionEnded": true,
    "sleepTimeout": 0
  }
}

Conversation End

As sessionEnded is set true, client goes do Sleeping mode and sessionId value is discarded (e.g. set to null) so new value will have to be created for new conversation. If sleepTimeout is non zero, then client also goes to Sleeping mode but keeps sessionId until sleep timeout expires. This allows to get back into the same session and have multiple conversations in the same session context.