States
Learn how to use states in your apps built with the Jovo Framework.
Introduction
For simple voice apps, the structure to handle the logic is quite simple:
This means, no matter how deep into the conversation with your voice app the user is, they will always end up at a specific YesIntent or NoIntent. As a developer, you need to figure out yourself which question they just answered with "Yes."
This is where states can be helpful. For more complex voice apps that include multiple user flows, it is necessary to remember and route through some user states to understand at which position the conversation currently is. For example, especially "Yes" and "No" as answers might show up across your voice app for a various number of questions. For each question, a state would be very helpful to distinct between different Yes's and No's.
With Jovo, you can include states like this:
By routing a user to a state (by using followUpState), this means you can react specifically to this certain situation in the process.
When a user is in a certain state and calls an intent, Jovo will first look if that intent is available in the given state. If not, a fallback option needs to be provided outside any state:
Alternatively, you can also use an Unhandled intent:
followUpState
If you want to route a user to a state after you asked a specific question, you can add a followUpState. It is important that you do this before your ask call. For example, you can prepend it like this:
This way, the voice app will first look if the response-intent is available in the given state. If not, it will go to the default called intent if it's available outside a state.
Nested States
You can also nest states for more complex multi-turn conversations:
You can nest as many states as you want. As they are objects, you reach them with the . separator. You can also use this.getState() to access the current state:
Remove a State
If you are inside a state and want to move outside to a global (stateless) intent in the next request, you have two options: