Defining how to interact with a skill in a conversation

Define how users interact with skill-based actions over the chat. When a user triggers a skill-based action, it can return the answer either as a form or as a multi-turn conversation. In a multi-turn conversation, each turn ask for information about a specific input parameter of the skill triggered.

Criteria to fallback to forms over multi-turn conversations

Note: Skill flows and most of the prebuilt apps and skills do not support multi-turn conversation and render skills' inputs and outputs as form-based.

Actions based on custom skills automatic fallback to forms over multi-turn conversations when any of the following criteria apply:

  • Skill is a skill flow

    Skill flows display their inputs and outputs in a form.

  • Skill input or output has annotations

    If any of the following properties are present in the Request or Response body of the OpenAPI specification that defines the skill:

    • x-ibm-ui-extension
    • x-ibm-operators
    • x-ibm-filter-format
    • x-ibm-pagination

  • Input or output fields use complex objects

    If any of the following complex objects are present in the Request or Response body of the OpenAPI specification that defines the skill:

    • table
    • file
    • password
    • boolean

  • Number of inputs fields exceeds the configured value

    If the number of input fields of the skill exceeds the maximum number of fields that are configured for multi-turn conversations, then the AI assistants use form-based interactions. Check the procedure at the Configuring the number of input fields for multi-turn conversations section to learn how to configure this value.

Information: Review the known issues and limitations for Skill-based actions.

Configuring the number of input fields for multi-turn conversations

Specify the maximum number of input fields (including optional fields) for a skill to be considered for multi-turn conversations. Skills with more than the specified number of input fields are displayed in the form format.

To specify the maximum number of fields for multi-turn conversations:

  1. Click your profile icon on the right side.
  2. Select Settings.
  3. Click Skill configurations.
  4. Specify the maximum number of input fields.

Skill configuration for multi-turn conversations in a tenant.

In the following image, you can see a preview of the Transfer bluepoints skill with two input fields and that receives values as a multi-turn conversation, while the Create an issue skill with seven input fields receives values in a form.

The previous scenario happens because the tenant sets the maximum number of fields to consider the skills' inputs as multi-turn conversations to two. In this case, the Create an issue skill fallback to a form because it receives more than two inputs.

Preview of a skill-based action.

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