While we offer a number of opensource SDKs and tools for working with the Pandorabots API, we highly recommend using the Pandorabots CLI. This tool is designed to let you manage and interact with your bots straight from the command line.
Of course, you could use an HTTP client like cURL to talk to the API. For example, to upload a file via cURL:
$ curl -v -X PUT 'https://api.pandorabots.com/bot/APP_ID/BOTNAME/file/example.aiml?user_key=USER_KEY'
--data-binary @/home/mybot/example.aiml
That’s a lineful! Wouldn’t it be better if you could just freely type the commands, without worrying about all the necessary parameters to format a request?
This is exactly what we’ve done with the CLI:
$ pb upload example.aiml
The CLI offers an easy and slick interface for doing all the things you’ll need to create, update, and maintain your chatbots.
The CLI itself is written in Javascript, so you’ll need to setup node.js on your machine before you can install it. Luckily, node.js offers a number of installers for OS X and Windows users to make this very easy. You can also download binaries for Linux, or build yourself from the source code.
Node.js comes prepackaged with npm, which is a Javascript package manager that has an extremely vibrant community of modules and users. You can install the CLI using thenpmcommand:
$ npm install -g pb-cli
This will install the CLI globally to your machine, making thepbandpandorabotscommands now available use in your command line.
The CLI introduces the concept of configuration files, which allow you to freely type commands as shown above. The configuration file is a JSON file calledchatbot.json. It stores basic information about your application:
{
"app_id": "********",
"user_key": "******",
"botname": "*******"
}
When you run a a CLI command, it will look in the current directory for thechatbot.jsonfile. If it finds one, it will automatically add the necessary information to you call. You can create this file from scratch, or, run theinitcommand to let the CLI build it for you. This command will prompt you for all the necessary information:
$ pb init
Once you have created achatbot.jsonfile, you can begin running all sorts of commands you might expect us to offer for the Pandorabots API:
$ pb create
$ pb upload example.aiml
$ pb compile
$ pb talk Hello world!
The CLI offers some additional tools not available through our REST API, such as the ability to upload multiple files at once:
$ pb push
Take a look at the CLI on Github for a complete list of the commands available. Please fork the project or report any issues or suggestions you may have!