Sample application to demonstrate UiPath - Watson integration

This Node.js app demonstrates the Watson Assistant service in a simple chat interface simulating a cognitive car dashboard.

Before you begin

• Create an IBM Cloud account
  • Sign up in IBM Cloud, or use an existing account. Your account must have available space for at least 1 app and 1 service.
• Make sure that you have the following prerequisites installed:

  • The Node.js runtime, including the [npm][npm_link] package manager

  • The [Cloud Foundry][cloud_foundry] command-line client

    Note: Ensure that you Cloud Foundry version is up to date

Setting up the Watson Assistant service

You can use an exisiting instance of the Watson Assistant service. Otherwise, follow these steps.

1. At the command line, go to the local project directory (assistant-simple).

2. Connect to IBM Cloud with the Cloud Foundry command-line tool. For more information, see the Watson Developer Cloud [documentation][cf_docs].

   cf login

3. Create an instance of the Watson Assistant service in IBM Cloud (our CLI is being updated, for now, use the create-service conversation command). For example:

   cf create-service conversation free my-watson-assistant-service

Configuring the app environment

1. Copy or rename the .env.example file to .env (nothing before the dot).

2. Create a service key in the format cf create-service-key <service_instance> <service_key>. For example:

   cf create-service-key my-watson-assistant-service myKey

3. Retrieve the credentials from the service key using the command cf service-key <service_instance> <service_key>. For example:

   cf service-key my-watson-assistant-service myKey

   The output from this command is a JSON object, as in this example:

   {
     "password": "87iT7aqpvU7l",
     "url": "https://gateway.watsonplatform.net/conversation/api",
     "username": "ca2905e6-7b5d-4408-9192-e4d54d83e604"
   }

4. Paste the password and username values (without quotation marks) from the JSON into the ASSISTANT_PASSWORD and ASSISTANT_USERNAME variables in the .env file. For example:

G ASSISTANT_USERNAME=ca2905e6-7b5d-4408-9192-e4d54d83e604 ASSISTANT_PASSWORD=87iT7aqpvU7l

1. Setup other parameters for UiPath in the .env file.

   AUTH_USERNAME=<Username for Authentication>
   AUTH_PASSWORD=<Password for Authentication>
   UIPATH_AUTH_TENANT=<Tenant for UiPath Orchestrator>
   UIPATH_AUTH_USERNAME=<Username for UiPath Orchestrator>
   UIPATH_AUTH_PASSWORD=<Password for UiPath Orchestrator>
   

Installing and starting the app locally

1. Install the demo app package into the local Node.js runtime environment:

   npm install

2. Start the app:

   npm start

3. Point your browser to http://localhost:3000 to try out the app.

Deploying to IBM Cloud

You can use Cloud Foundry to deploy your local version of the app to IBM Cloud.

1. In the project root directory, open the manifest.yml file:

• In the applications section of the manifest.yml file, change the name value to a unique name for your version of the demo app.
• In the services section, specify the name of the Watson Assistant service instance you created for the demo app. If you do not remember the service name, use the cf services command to list all services you have created.

The following example shows a modified manifest.yml file:

---
declared-services:
 my-watson-assistant-service:
   label: conversation
   plan: free
applications:
- name: <Application Name>
 command: npm start
 path: .
 memory: 256M
 instances: 1
 services:
 - <Service Name of Watson Assistant>
 env:
   NPM_CONFIG_PRODUCTION: false

1. Push the app to IBM Cloud:

cf push

Access your app on IBM Cloud at the URL specified in the command output.

License

This sample code is licensed under Apache 2.0. Full license text is available in LICENSE.