Actions SDK Conversational Quickstart

- 3 minutes read - 430 words

Google’s tutorial didn’t work for me.

In this post, I’ll help you get this working.

https://developers.google.com/assistant/conversational/quickstart

Create and set up a project

This mostly works.

I recommend using the Actions Console as described to create the project.

I chose “Custom” and “Blank Project”

You need not enable Actions API as this is done automatically:

Actions API

For the console work, I’m going to use Google’s excellent Cloud Shell. You may access this through the browser or through a terminal:

gcloud alpha cloud-shell ssh

From within Cloud Shell, we need to login using gcloud. Be sure to complete the OAuth flow:

gcloud auth login

Then set an environment variable for your project, associate it with a billing account, and enable the Cloud Build:

PROJECT=[[YOUR-PROJECT-ID]]
BILLING=$(gcloud beta billing accounts list --format="value(name)")

gcloud beta billing projects link ${PROJECT} \
--billing-account=${BILLING}

gcloud services enable cloudbuild.googleapis.com \
--project=${PROJECT}

Install the gactions command-line tool

Do this as described.

In Cloud Shell, I installed this in ${HOME}:

wget \
https://dl.google.com/gactions/v3/release/gactions-sdk_linux.tar.gz \
--output-file gactions-sdk_linux.tar.gz

tar xvf gactions-sdk_linux.tar.gz

PATH=${PATH}:${HOME}/aog_cli

gactions version
3.0.0+316143447

No need to do the chmod.

Get the hello world sample

Do this as described. It’s not ‘hello world’ but called “Interactive canvas sample”:

gactions init interactive-canvas \
--dest interactive-canvas-sample
  • interactive-canvas-sample/sdk/settings/settings.yaml replace <PROJECT_ID> with the value of ${PROJECT}
  • interactive-canvas-sample/sdk/webhooks/ActionsOnGoogleFulfillment/index.js replace https://PROJECT_ID... with `https://${PROJECT}…

You can:

cd ./interactive-canvas-sample

sed --in-place \
  "s|<PROJECT_ID>|${PROJECT}|g" \
  ./sdk/settings/settings.yaml 

sed --in-place \
  "s|https://PROJECT_ID.web.app|https://${PROJECT}.web.app|g" \
  ./sdk/webhooks/ActionsOnGoogleFulfillment/index.js

Deploy and test the sample

cd ./interactive-canvas-sample

firebase deploy --project=${PROJECT} --only=hosting

Yields:

=== Deploying to '${PROJECT}'...

i  deploying hosting
i  hosting[${PROJECT}]: beginning deploy...
i  hosting[${PROJECT}]: found 9 files in public
✔  hosting[${PROJECT}]: file upload complete
i  hosting[${PROJECT}]: finalizing version...
✔  hosting[${PROJECT}]: version finalized
i  hosting[${PROJECT}]: releasing new version...
✔  hosting[${PROJECT}]: release complete

✔  Deploy complete!

Hosting URL: https://${PROJECT}.web.app

You should be able to browse the function too on that hosting URL:

App

You may list the function two ways:

firebase projects:list
✔ Preparing the list of your Firebase projects
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┬────────────────┬──────────────────────┐
│ Project Display Name        │ Project ID                  │ Project Number │ Resource Location ID │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────────┤
│ ${PROJECT}                  │ ${PROJECT}                  │ 123456789012   │ [Not specified]      │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┴────────────────┴──────────────────────┘

Or:

gcloud functions list --project=${PROJECT}
NAME                            STATUS   TRIGGER       REGION
cf-beVXlEiFGhXOspUjLiBNgQ-name  OFFLINE  HTTP Trigger  us-central1

Then, from within the sdk subdirectory:

cd sdk
gactions push
gactions deploy preview

You should receive a ✔ Done. and you may then browse:

http://console.actions.google.com/project/${PROJECT}/simulator?disableAutoPreview

Simulator

And you want to type Talk to Interactive canvas sample (not what the documentation says):

Simulator

And then you can type, e.g. red:

Simulator

Hope that helps!

Tidy

When you’re done, you may delete the project entirely to clear up all the resources:

gcloud projects delete ${PROJECT}