Mycroft AI
  • Documentation
  • About Mycroft AI
    • Why use Mycroft AI?
    • Glossary of terms
    • Contributing
    • FAQ
  • Using Mycroft AI
    • Get Mycroft
      • Mark II
        • Mark II Dev Kit
      • Mark 1
      • Picroft
      • Linux
      • Mac OS and Windows with VirtualBox
      • Docker
      • Android
    • Pairing Your Device
    • Basic Commands
    • Installing New Skills
    • Customizations
      • Configuration Manager
      • mycroft.conf
      • Languages
        • Français (French)
        • Deutsch (German)
      • Using a Custom Wake Word
      • Speech-To-Text
      • Text-To-Speech
    • Troubleshooting
      • General Troubleshooting
      • Audio Troubleshooting
      • Wake Word Troubleshooting
      • Log Files
      • Support Skill
      • Getting more support
  • Skill Development
    • Voice User Interface Design Guidelines
      • What can a Skill do?
      • Design Process
      • Voice Assistant Personas
      • Interactions
        • Intents
        • Statements and Prompts
        • Confirmations
      • Conversations
      • Error Handling
      • Example Interaction Script
      • Prototyping
      • Design to Development
    • Development Setup
      • Python Resources
      • Your First Skill
    • Skill Structure
      • Lifecycle Methods
      • Logging
      • Skill Settings
      • Dependencies
        • Manifest.yml
        • Requirements files
      • Filesystem access
      • Skill API
    • Integration Tests
      • Test Steps
      • Scenario Outlines
      • Test Runner
      • Reviewing the Report
      • Adding Custom Steps
      • Old Test System
    • User interaction
      • Intents
        • Padatious Intents
        • Adapt Intents
      • Statements
      • Prompts
      • Parsing Utterances
      • Confirmations
      • Conversational Context
      • Converse
    • Displaying information
      • GUI Framework
      • Show Simple Content
      • Mycroft-GUI on a PC
      • Mark 1 Display
    • Advanced Skill Types
      • Fallback Skill
      • Common Play Framework
      • Common Query Framework
      • Common IoT Framework
    • Mycroft Skills Manager
      • Troubleshooting
    • Marketplace Submission
      • Skills Acceptance Process
        • Information Review Template
        • Code Review Template
        • Functional Review Template
        • Combined Template
      • Skill README.md
    • FAQ
  • Mycroft Technologies
    • Technology Overview
    • Roadmap
    • Mycroft Core
      • MessageBus
      • Message Types
      • Services
        • Enclosure
        • Voice Service
        • Audio Service
        • Skills Service
      • Plugins
        • Audioservice Plugins
        • STT Plugins
        • TTS Plugins
        • Wake Word Plugins
      • Testing
      • Legacy Repo
    • Adapt
      • Adapt Examples
      • Adapt Tutorial
    • Lingua Franca
    • Mimic TTS
      • Mimic 3
      • Mimic 2
      • Mimic 1
      • Mimic Recording Studio
    • Mycroft GUI
      • Remote STT and TTS
    • Mycroft Skills Kit
    • Mycroft Skills Manager
    • Padatious
    • Precise
    • Platforms
Powered by GitBook
On this page

Was this helpful?

  1. Skill Development
  2. User interaction

Intents

An intent is the task the user intends to accomplish when they say something. The role of the intent parser is to extract from the user's speech key data elements that specify their intent.

PreviousUser interactionNextPadatious Intents

Last updated 5 years ago

Was this helpful?

A user can accomplish the same task by expressing their intent in multiple ways. The role of the intent parser is to extract from the user's speech key data elements that specify their intent in more detail. This data can then be passed to other services, such as Skills to help the user accomplish their intended task.

Example: Julie wants to know about today's weather in her current location, which is Melbourne, Australia.

"hey mycroft, what's today's weather like?"

"hey mycroft, what's the weather like in Melbourne?"

"hey mycroft, weather"

Even though these are three different expressions, for most of us they probably have roughly the same meaning. In each case we would assume the user expects Mycroft to respond with today's weather for their current location. The role of an intent parser is to determine what this intent is.

In the example above, we might extract data elements like:

  • weather - we know that Julie wants to know about the weather, but she has not been specific about the type of weather, such as wind, precipitation, snowfall or the risk of fire danger from bushfires. Melbourne, Australia rarely experiences snowfall, but falls under bushfire risk every summer.

  • location - Julie has stipulated her location as Melbourne, but she does not state that she means Melbourne, Australia. How do we distinguish this from Melbourne, Florida, United States?

  • date - Julie has been specific about the timeframe she wants weather data for - today. But how do we know what today means in Julie's timezone. Melbourne, Australia is between 14-18 hours ahead of the United States. We don't want to give Julie yesterday's weather, particularly as Melbourne is renowned for having changeable weather.

Mycroft's Intent Parsing Engines

Mycroft has two separate Intent parsing engines each with their own strengths. Each of these can be used in most situations, however they will process the utterance in different ways.

is a light-weight neural network that is trained on whole phrases. Padatious intents are generally more accurate however require you to include sample phrases that cover the breadth of ways that a User may ask about something.

is a keyword based parser. It is more flexible, as it detects the presence of one or more keywords in an utterance, however this can result in false matches.

We will now look at each in more detail, including how to use them in a Mycroft Skill.

Padatious
Adapt