Porting the Hello World Skill

This article explains, step-by-step, how the Classic Core Hello World Skill can be ported to the Mark II running Dinkum.

1. Copy Files Over

1. Find skill repository (template is ‘skill-[name]’). In this case: skill-hello-world

2. SSH into Mark II.

3. Go to the skills directory and make a new directory for your new Skill.

   • cd /opt/mycroft-dinkum/skills

   • mkdir hello.mark2

4. Next to the Dinkum repo, clone the Skill repo.

   • cd /opt

   • sudo git clone https://github.com/MycroftAI/skill-hello-world.git

5. Copy the files from the Skill repo into the new Skill directory.

   • cp -r skill-hello-world/* mycroft-dinkum/skills/hello.mark2/

2. Modify __init__.py

Modify import statement

from mycroft import MycroftSkill, intent_handler 

to:

from mycroft.skills import MycroftSkill, intent_handler

Replace interaction calls

Replace responses such as

 self.speak_dialog("welcome") 

with:

 return self.end_session(dialog=dialog, gui=gui)

For example:

 # self.speak_dialog("hello.world")
 dialog = "hello.world"
 gui = None
 return self.end_session(dialog=dialog, gui=gui)

Enhance create_skill

def create_skill():
 return HelloWorldSkill()

becomes:

def create_skill(skill_id: str):
     return HelloWorldSkill(skill_id=skill_id)

Add skill_id and name to __init__ method

def __init__(self, skill_id: str):
     """ The __init__ method is called when the Skill is first constructed.
     It is often used to declare variables or perform setup actions, however
     it cannot utilise MycroftSkill methods as the class does not yet exist.
     """
     super().__init__(skill_id=skill_id, name="HelloSkill")
     self.learning = True

3. Add Skill to system files

To /opt/mycroft-dinkum/services/enclosure/service/skills.json add:

 { "name": "Hello World Skill", "skill_gid": "hello.mark2" },

To /etc/systemd/system/dinkum-skills.service add:

--skill /opt/mycroft-dinkum/skills/hello.mark2

4. Reload skills service settings

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

5. Restart Dinkum skills service

sudo systemctl restart dinkum-skills.service

6. Use your new Skill

“Hey Mycroft, how are you?”