# Intents

Let's start with an example. A user in Melbourne, Australia might want to know about the weather. To ask for this information, they might say:

> "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. 

It is up us as Skill creators to teach Mycroft the variety of ways that a user might express the same intent. This is a key part of the design process. It is the key difference between a Skill that kind of works if you know what to say, and a Skill that feels intuitive and natural to talk to.

This is handled by an intent parser whose job it is to learn from your Skill what intents it can handle, and extract from the user's speech and key information that might be useful for your Skill. In this case it might include the specified date and location.

For technical details on using Intents in your Mycroft Skill, see:

{% content-ref url="/pages/-M7iJV2fqYvpAJX\_ckfN" %}
[Intents](/docs/skill-development/voice-user-interface-design-guidelines/interactions-and-guidelines/intents.md)
{% endcontent-ref %}


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://mycroft-ai.gitbook.io/docs/skill-development/voice-user-interface-design-guidelines/interactions-and-guidelines/intents.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.