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How to parse the output traces

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This article is part of a guide on getting started with Voiceflow APIs

Start from the beginning here.

Now, let's go into how to interpret this big array of JSON objects. Each of these objects is called a trace, which represent any output from Voiceflow. Their most important fields are the type which tells you how to interpret the second part, the payload that actually stores the content you need to use the output.

So a response from the DM API is made of an array of traces, and to parse them we have to iterate through the array of traces. You can learn more about other traces here.

To get a simple output from our agent, we'll just start off with looking for text traces, that store their content in the payload's message field: trace['payload']['message'].

👉 Add a for loop iterating through all the response traces, looking for text traces and printing it's output.

import requests

api_key = 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE' # it should look like this: VF.DM.XXXXXXX.XXXXXX... keep this a secret!

# user_id defines who is having the conversation, e.g. steve, [email protected], username_464
def interact(user_id, request):
    response = requests.post(
        f'https://general-runtime.voiceflow.com/state/user/{user_id}/interact',
        json={ 'request': request },
        headers={ 
            'Authorization': api_key,
            'versionID': 'production'
        },
    )
    
    for trace in response.json():
        if trace['type'] == 'text':
            print(trace['payload']['message'])
    
name = input('> What is your name?\n')
interact(name, { 'type': 'launch' })

const axios = require('axios');
const readline = require('readline');

const api_key = 'YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'; // it should look like this: VF.DM.XXXXXXX.XXXXXX... keep this a secret!

// user_id defines who is having the conversation, e.g. steve, [email protected], username_464
const interact = async (user_id, request) => {
    try {
        const response = await axios.post(
            `https://general-runtime.voiceflow.com/state/user/${user_id}/interact`,
            { request: request },
            {
                headers: {
                    'Authorization': api_key,
                    'versionID': 'production',
                    'accept': 'application/json',
                    'content-type': 'application/json'
                }
            }
        );

        const traces = response.data;
        for (let trace of traces) {
            if (trace.type === 'text') {
                console.log(trace.payload.message);
            }
        }
    } catch (error) {
        console.error('Error interacting with Voiceflow:', error);
    }
};

const rl = readline.createInterface({
    input: process.stdin,
    output: process.stdout
});

rl.question('> What is your name?\n', (name) => {
    interact(name, { type: 'launch' }).then(() => rl.close());
});

You should now get a much easier to understand output in your terminal.

python3 VoiceflowAPIGuide.py
> What is your name?
Testing-Alex
Hi there Python!
Echoing

Amazing! Now we've got text messages back from our Voiceflow agent. But the conversation's just one step… let's figure out how to send an answer back.

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Next up: How to send user replies