CognigyScript¶

CognigyScript is a superset of JavaScript which gives you access to the Input and Context objects within text and JSON.

Using CognigyScript, you can execute powerful scripts to create the replies you want to return to the client.

Within text, you write CognigyScript within {{ }} tags. Example: {{input.text}}

CognigyScript is essentially JavaScript, but gives you access to the Cognigy objects via exposed variables:

Variable	Description	Example
input	The Input Object	{{input.text}}
context	The Context Object	{{context.selectedHotel}}
profile	The Contact Profile Object	{{profile.firstname}}

Node Arguments¶

Accessing the CognigyScript functionality differs between different types of arguments.

For Text arguments¶

Within text arguments of a Cognigy Flow Node, CognigyScript is written using {{ }} tags. It evaluated as it is written. This is indicated by the label CognigyScript above the input field.

Invalid expressions return an empty string

If the expression is invalid, an empty string is returned.

Example {{input.text.toUpperCase()}} would return the text the client sent all in upper case.

Type Preservation CognigyScript in Node Arguments is always returned as string, unless you force the type to be preserved. You can do this by appending .preserveType() to your script.

Example {{context.anObject.preserveType()}} will return whatever anObject is, so for example a JavaScript Object.

For JSON arguments¶

Within JSON arguments, a special notation { "$cs": { "script": "x", "type": "t"}}" }} can to be used to run CognigyScript. You may supply a script and a return type. The special notation allows you to define a type. It will then try to convert the value to this type, for example, String "6" to a number, or an Object to a String.

Example with Typing

{
    "customer_orders": {
        "$cs": {
            "script": "context.orders",
            "type": "object"
        }
    }
}

Example with Inline CognigyScript

{
    "customer_orders": "{{context.orders}}"
}

This would try to retrieve the orders Object from the Context and assign it to customer_orders. If context.orders doesn't exist, the "customer_orders" key is simply skipped.

IF Conditions and SWITCH Operands¶

Within conditions, CognigyScript is also written without {{ }} tags. It is evaluated just like standard JavaScript would. This is indicated by the label CognigyScript (direct) above the input field.

Example

context.orders === 3 would be true, if the orders variable stored in the Context is 3.

Code Nodes¶

Within Code Nodes you don't need to use the {{ }} tags. The input, context, profile and actions variables are exposed by default, as are _ and moment.

Example

const ordercount = context.orders;
switch(ordercount) {
    case 0:
        input.ordertext = "You ordered no items";
        actions.output('Hello', {'action': 1}); // outputs the text 'hello' with data {'action': 1}
        break;
    case 1:
        input.ordertext = "You ordered one item";
        break;
    default:
        input.ordertext = "You ordered many items";
}

Cognigy Objects Life Span¶

The picture below shows the life span of the different Cognigy objects. The Input object (input) is created anew on each new user input (each new Flow Execution), the Context object (context) is stored for the duration of the entire conversation, and the Profile object (profile) is stored forever. This means that information about the user that you want to persist (e.g. the name of the user), should be stored in the Profile object.