One of the best things about working on the Bot Framework here at Microsoft is the phenomenal community that surrounds the SDKs, tools and platforms. Whether it is contributing to the core Microsoft repositories, working as part of the Bot Framework Community GitHub project, building other open source extensions, or helping to educate other developers via online and in-person content – we see incredible value being added everywhere.
This post is the first in a series of regular community focused articles, allowing us the opportunity to promote the great work that is happening out there in the community. This will include highlighting recent significant open source contributions, upcoming community delivered conference and meetup sessions and calls to action of where you can get involved.
Go SDK for Bot Framework
An exciting benefit of having the Bot Framework SDKs developed in the open is that even if an SDK doesn’t exist for your language of choice, you can build it yourself, using the existing SDKs as a guide. So, for those of you who have been longing for a Go flavour of the Bot Framework SDK, wait no longer because that’s exactly what the folks over at InfraCloud have been working on. You can find the project at https://github.com/infracloudio/msbotbuilder-go and get started with one of the available samples in just a few minutes.
We cannot wait to see where this project goes next (pun very much intended).
Would you like an adaptive card prompt?
Using Adaptive Cards as inputs for bot users is a very common use case, but handling the required logic surrounding this can be difficult – including validation, retries and parsing the incoming response coming from the card. Thankfully, Michael Richardson (https://github.com/mdrichardson) from the Bot Framework Support team, has recently contributed a new Adaptive Card Prompt to the Bot Framework Community project on GitHub. The new prompt allows for accepting input and validation from cards, including the ability to ensure that the response is coming from the correct card (and not a previous card posted to the conversation).
You can find the new prompt available for both .NET and JavaScript / TypeScript, along with instructions on how to install and use the new packages, at the links below.
Alexa Adapter for JS / TypeScript
For some time now, the Alexa Adapter has been a popular component of the .NET Bot Framework Community. The adapter allows developers to add a new endpoint to their bots and have that endpoint act as fulfilment for Alexa Skills. Now, thanks to awesome efforts from Mick Vleeshouwer (https://github.com/iMicknl) and Jacob Mayer (https://github.com/trashcanmonster8), a preview of a JavaScript / TypeScript implementation of the adapter is now available to install from NPM.
Current features supported by the JS adapter include display template support for devices with a screen, audio / video directive support and the ability to send Alexa Cards as part of your bot response. Now is a great time to pick up the preview and try it out – plus the readme calls out those features that are not currently supported, so why not jump in and contribute yourself! You can find details about the current preview at https://github.com/BotBuilderCommunity/botbuilder-community-js/tree/develop/libraries/botbuilder-adapter-alexa.
Upcoming Events
Below is a list of upcoming events that will feature Azure Conversational AI related content.
| Event Name | Date | Location | Speaker name | Topic | Link to event |
| Ignite Tour | March 4th | Zurich | Stephan Bisser @stephanbisser |
BF Overview | Session Link |
| Ignite Tour | March 5th | Zurich | Stephan Bisser @stephanbisser |
BF Composer | Session Link |
| Ignite Tour | March 5th | Zurich | Tom Morgan @tomorgan |
BF & Teams | Session Link |
| SxSW | March 13th | Austin | Ben Brown @benbrown |
BF Overview | |
| #CSharp Conference | March 14th | Delhi | Allen O’neill | BF Overview | |
| SxSW | March 15th | Austin | Ben Brown @benbrown |
BF Overview | |
| SharePoint Fest | April 13th | Washington DC | Prashant G Bhoyar @pgbhoyar |
BF Overview | Session link |
| Azure Data Fest | April 17th | TBD | Prashant G Bhoyar @pgbhoyar |
BF Overview | |
| AI Hack Day | April 18th | Sydney | Arafat Tehsin @arafattehsin |
BF Composer | Session Link |
| Azure Global Bootcamp | April 25th | Glasgow | Jamie Maguire @jamie_maguire1 |
Azure Cognitive Services Overview | |
| Azure Global Bootcamp | April 25th | Sydney | Arafat Tehsin @arafattehsin |
MSFT Conv AI | Session Link |
| SharePoint Conference | May 19th | Las Vegas | Stephan Bisser @stephanbisser |
Bots & SharePoint | Session Link |
| Microsoft Build | May 19th | Seattle | Multiple speakers – TBD | TBD | TBD |
Get in touch
If you have any suggestions of things you’d also like to see included in this blog, or any contributions you’d like us to be sure to highlight- please feel free to provide feedback.