AWS Lex Python Codehook references - amazon-lex

Question

I am still pretty new to Python (and coding) but I am trying to build my own Lex bot with a Lambda function. I have been following the tutorials and I can understand how it all works. Problem is when I am trying to write my own Lambda functions for Lex, I cannot find any references to help me write my code for example looking at the code below.
def get_slots(intent_request):
return intent_request['currentIntent']['slots']
What is "(intent_request)" and where would I find reference to this? Same for "['currentIntent'], how can I find out what it is and why it is there??
Sorry if this seems stupid to most people on here but I can't start writing code and continue to learn if I can't find any documentation to suggest what these are and why they are needed in order to write code for my own Lex bots.
Thanks in advance!!!

Answer 1

The intent_request is the incoming "request" or "event" from Lex to your Lambda Function. It holds all the necessary information about the user's input and your Lex bot's processing of that input (trigger certain intent, fill certain slots, confirmations, etc.)
This should be the documentation you are looking for.
Lambda Function Input Event and Response Format:
This section describes the structure of the event data that Amazon Lex provides to a Lambda function. Use this information to parse the input in your Lambda code. It also explains the format of the response that Amazon Lex expects your Lambda function to return.
And here is the Event/Request format:
{
"currentIntent": {
"name": "intent-name",
"slots": {
"slot name": "value",
"slot name": "value"
},
"slotDetails": {
"slot name": {
"resolutions" : [
{ "value": "resolved value" },
{ "value": "resolved value" }
],
"originalValue": "original text"
},
"slot name": {
"resolutions" : [
{ "value": "resolved value" },
{ "value": "resolved value" }
],
"originalValue": "original text"
}
},
"confirmationStatus": "None, Confirmed, or Denied (intent confirmation, if configured)"
},
"bot": {
"name": "bot name",
"alias": "bot alias",
"version": "bot version"
},
"userId": "User ID specified in the POST request to Amazon Lex.",
"inputTranscript": "Text used to process the request",
"invocationSource": "FulfillmentCodeHook or DialogCodeHook",
"outputDialogMode": "Text or Voice, based on ContentType request header in runtime API request",
"messageVersion": "1.0",
"sessionAttributes": {
"key": "value",
"key": "value"
},
"requestAttributes": {
"key": "value",
"key": "value"
}
}
The slots data is found inside currentIntent and that is inside of this whole intent_request object. That is why you are seeing the code: intent_request['currentIntent']['slots']
So to get session attributes you can find them here: intent_request['sessionAttributes']
Also extremely useful is the exact user input text:
intent_request['inputTranscript']