Bot Framework SDK 4.14.0

Welcome to the June 2021 release of the Bot Framework SDK. A few notable items include the introduction of the Cloud Adapter (#3790) and supporting authentication types (#3820, #3534), as well as several Teams features (#3757, #3738). See below for the full set of changes.

Changelog for Javascript 4.14.0

• feat: cherrypick orchestrator fix, runtime docs [PR 3845]
• port: runtime docs [PR 3838]
• port: orchestrator package changes [PR 3824]
• chore: tests for cloud adapter [PR 3833]
• fix: enable TeamsInfo methods to work with CloudAdapter [PR 3830]
• chore: remove public access modifier in botframework-streaming [PR 3794]
• port: update TeamsInfo to support CloudAdapter [PR 3821]
• chore: use BFAuthentication for BFClient in runtime, fix comparison bug [PR 3820]
• fix: Update OrchestratorRecognizer to 4.14.0 orchestrator-core [PR 3818]
• port: conversation ID header [PR 3815]
• fix: add sortNumber test case [PR 3807]
• port: allowed caller runtime configuration [PR 3816]
• feat: create conversation [PR 3805]
• fix: OAuth prompt should store in turn.token, not dialog.token [PR 3803]
• feat: AdaptiveExpressions: Allow 0 to convert as false bool [PR 3801]
• fix: handle reactions added/removed separately [PR 3796]
• feat: cloud adapter [PR 3790]
• chore: add missing packages to consumer test [PR 3737]
• fix: warning on component load failure [PR 3780]
• fix: first activity from bot to user has fake replyToId value [PR 3779]
• fix: return full response w/ adaptiveCard invoke action [PR 3778]
• feat: add support for Teams meeting start/end events [PR 3757]
• port: turn memory scope in snapshot [PR 3775]
• port: Support iteration for object in ForEach action [PR 3772]
• fix: Maxturn count increase while interruption in composer prompts [PR 3774]
• README for Orchestrator package library folder [PR 3754]
• fix: make enum lookup case insensitive [PR 3743]
• port: Fix double evaluation and filter sensitive settings [PR 3740]
• feat: add getMeetingInfo to TeamsInfo [PR 3738]
• fix: adjust adaptiveCard/action handling [PR 3729]
• chore: remove unnecessary public access modifier [PR 3731]
• feat: Support 'adaptiveCard/action' in Teams handler [PR 3716]
• chore: bump streaming bot deps [PR 3721]
• chore: add link/unlink scripts [PR 3720]
• bump chromedriver to ^90.0.1 in browser-functional-tests [PR 3719]
• feat: allow wildcard in mock paths [PR 3713]
• fix: ignore node_modules declarative assets [PR 3709]
• fix: clean command should ignore missing [PR 3708]
• bump: adal-node to 0.2.2 [PR 3705]
• port: allow LUIS recognize to be called without turnContext [PR 3690]
• chore: add test:compat to CI tests [PR 3691]
• fix: named pipe issues [PR 3627]
• Allow back quotes in adaptive expression object and array construction [PR 3700]
• fix: two typos [PR 3696]
• fix: more permissive type assertions [PR 3692]
• port: Support object comparison in == [PR 3672]
• port: add handledProperty to emitEvent [PR 3686]
• fix: auto-disable telemetry for schema tests [PR 3688]
• feat: configure static directory, default wwwroot [PR 3682]
• fix: json parse in azure function skill endpoint [PR 3679]
• fix: several skills-related runtime issues [PR 3675]
• fix: mark azure types deprecated [PR 3666]
• port: telemetry pii settings path [PR 3665]
• fix: add msbot keywords to component packages [PR 3657]
• chore: Replace catch with assert.rejects|throws in tests (part 3 of 3) [PR 3661]
• fix: application insights trackEvent invocation [PR 3651]
• fix: config file overrides [PR 3660]
• fix: add @types/express [PR 3652]
• chore: Replace catch with assert.rejects|throws in tests (part 2) [PR 3653]
• Support timestamp without timezone postfix in getTimeOfDay [PR 3639]
• fix: Fix subArray and substring while index equals the length of array/string [PR 3637]
• fix: update readme packages, formatting [PR 3650]
• bump: runtypes [PR 3648]
• fix lint errors in bf-connector [PR 3646]
• fix: conflict -> precondition failed [PR 3645]

Bot Framework SDK 4.13.1

April 2021 (version 4.13.1)

Welcome to the April 2021 release of the Bot Framework SDK. The release introduces several new preview packages that support writing Javascript Bots inside Botframework Composer. Along with this, several bug fixes and usability improvements are included that should make writing Bots in Javascript even better.

General release notes [Draft]

Change log for Javascript 4.13.1:

• port: save conversation state before sending card [PR 3640]
• fix: remove preview tag from botbuilder-ai-orchestrator package [PR 3629]
• bump: orchestrator-core package to 4.13.1 [PR 3612]
• port: settings memory scope [PR 3549]
• fix: export default orchestrator bot component [PR 3599]
• feat: export ai components for runtime consumption [PR 3586]
• cherrypick: several runtime fixes, teams sso middleware [PR 3576]
• fix: merge generated config into runtime config [PR 3561]
• cherrypick: remove teams, app insights connection string [PR 3555]
• port: several parity issues [PR 3540
• port: resume dialog fix from .net [PR 3525]
• cherrypick: small runtime tweaks [PR 3522]
• cherrypick: runtypes lock and set speak middleware fixes [PR 3511]
• fix: resolve bad runtime adapter/skill auth configuration (#3499) [PR 3504]
• fix: async error handling for request handlers (#3492) [PR 3495]
• cherrypick: semver, qna fixes [PR 3491]
• bump: 4.13 [PR 3487]
• port: Support null for built-in function empty [PR 3484]
• port: Add support of Expressions in BeginDialog Actions [PR 3460]
• remove HealthCheck code for #3374 [PR 3482]
• feat: add suggestionsActivityFactory & tests, fix QnAMakerDialog bugs [PR 3475]
• fix: rename runtime packages [PR 3481]
• port: component registration -> bot components [PR 3471]
• Update package to point at rc [PR 3473]
• port: refactor plugin interface to BotComponent class [PR 3454]
• fix: wrap error message in Error [PR 3469]
• OrchestratorAdaptiveRecognizer -> OrchestratorRecognizer [PR 3468]
• Enable Orchestrator entity recognition when entity model is provided [PR 3441]
• Allow spaces in merge path [PR 3463]
• Replace done w/ async part 5 (final PR for this) [PR 3436]
• port: Assign a default TemplateEngineLanguageGenerator to Generator [PR 3444]
• port: Change ChoiceSet to support LG [PR 3443]
• port: adaptive card invoke [PR 3327]
• fix: make useNamedPipe idempotent if already connected to pipeName [PR 3450]
• feat: port several runtime changes [PR 3446]
• port: add speach middleware to runtime [PR 3435]
• port: do nothing when activity is null [PR 3421]
• port: move classes/helpers out of runtime [PR 3430]
• Replace done w/ async part 4 [PR 3427]
• Replace done w/ async part 3 [PR 3422]
• fixes: BotFrameworkAdapter.isStreamingConnectionOpen & retrieving BotTelemetryClient from TurnContext.turnState [PR 3428]
• adaptive-expressions' refinements [PR 3410]
• port: Check null for input prompt [PR 3425]
• port: enable LG syntax in OAuthInput [PR 3409]
• feat: botframework http adapter [PR 3375]
• Replace done w/ async part 2 [PR 3416]
• Replace done w/ async in tests part 1 [PR 3413]
• fix: runtime parity [PR 3412]
• feat: config argv source, runtime port handling [PR 3406]
• Add dialog:merge tests [PR 3404]
• fix: bump chromedriver to ^89.0.0 in browser-functional-tests [PR 3408]
• refactor DialogHelper & DialogManager to follow .NET impl [PR 3401]
• port: Better binary data support in Expression/LG functions [PR 3390]
• fix: bump xmldom [PR 3402]
• feat: dialogs component registration [PR 3380]
• refine error message [PR 3387]
• fix: add messagingEndpointPath to Options in restify integration lib [PR 3353]
• Add logPersonalInformation to recognizers [PR 3296]
• feat: added callback to TestFlow & ported json load tests [PR 3351]
• [Port] Localization: fix bugs around inconsistent locale + first step to centralize locale resolution [PR 3340]
• Add startTest() to all TestFlows [PR 3379]
• feat: add botbuilder-runtime-integration-express [PR 3354]
• port: SendHandoffActivity action [PR 3304]
• feat: language generation component registration [PR 3370]
• Catch premature dialog endings [PR 3361]
• fix: better version metadata [PR 3364]
• fix: eslint settings, lint errors [PR 3348]
• fix: include conversation ID in telemetry events [PR 3347]
• support float priority [PR 3362]
• fix: trigger condition cache expressions correctly [PR 3357]
• feat: core runtime [PR 3336]
• fix: QnAMakerDialog to handle interuption scenarios [PR 3346]
• Upgrade package parse-url to fix the security issue [PR 3337]
• fix: filter out undefined regex match groups [PR 3335]
• removed jsonpath [PR 3331]
• [PORT]Add 'any' and 'all' prebuilt function [PR 3325]
• fix: 4.12.* -> 4.13.* for preview builds [PR 3326]

Bot Framework SDK 4.12.0

March 2021 (version 4.12.0)

Welcome to the March 2021 release of the Bot Framework SDK.

• Telephony Bot Framework Telephony channel is now available with samples in early preview.

• Teams New and improved samples, Adaptive Card Tabs, Action.Execute (preview, C#) and Composer support (preview).

• Cloud Adapter Cloud Adapter (preview 2, C#) has improved platform support with increased functionality.

• Orchestrator Orchestrator (preview 3) now supports more languages, and documentation has been improved.

• CLI Bot Framework CLI Tools LUIS applications neural training technology support, and more!

• Azure Health Bot Microsoft Healthcare Bot service is moving to Azure, further empowering organizations to benefit from Azure’s enhanced tooling, security, and compliance offerings.

• Power Virtual Agents PVA Bot creation, editing and publishing made easy!

Insiders: Want to try new features as soon as possible? You can download the nightly Insiders build [C#] [JS] [Python] [CLI] and try the latest updates as soon as they are available. And for the latest Bot Framework news, updates, and content, follow us on Twitter @msbotframework!

Telephony (preview)

The Telephony channel is a channel in Microsoft Bot Framework that enables a bot to interact with users over the phone. It leverages the power of Microsoft Bot Framework combined with the Azure Communication Services and the Azure Speech Services.

Note: Telephony Channel is currently in Public Preview, available broadly for the US-based Azure subscriptions. Get started building a Telephony Bot today: Botframework-Telephony

Cloud Adapter (C# only, preview 2)

• Platform alignment improved with HttpClientFactory
• User authentication improvements with UserTokenClient
• Streaming protocol support integrated into Cloud Adapter
• TurnContext, TurnState and ConnectorClient object lifetime is now properly handled by the SDK, disposing these objects after they are out of scope.
• Cloud Adapter has been deprecated from WebApi

Microsoft Teams

• Adaptive Card Tabs with samples
• Adaptive Dialog responses with new Teams triggers and Actions (preview), available in the C# and JavaScript SDKs as well as the Composer nightly.
• New and improved samples.

Bot Framework CLI Tools

• Added support for LUIS applications neural training technology.
• Enhancements and fixes to LU Parser to support special characters and name duplication on Intents and features.
• Enable direct version publish in luis:build.

Orchestrator (preview 3)

Orchestrator recognizer has been updated for preview 3 as follows:
• Improved language recognition models and samples
• New multilingual models for New multilingual models for Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
• Updated CLI with support for dispatch migration scenarios.
• Improved support of Composer scenarios.
• Support for 32bit windows for limited scenarios. For production you must use 64bit.
• Updated documentation

Adaptive Cards Invoke (preview, C# sdk only)

• Support for Adaptive Cards Action.Execute is now available in the C# sdk.
• See also Universal Bot

Bug fixes and improvements

• Add DialogManager support in python sdk
• Fix DialogManager does not return EoC code when a dialog ends
• Fixes in dotnet streaming library
• Localization fixes and improved support for Composer scenarios

Composer

• Please see the detailed Bot Framework Composer release notes

Azure Health Bot

The Health Bot Service is a cloud platform for developers, built on top of Microsoft Azure and uses Bot Framework under the hood. Health Bot Overview.

Introducing Azure Health Bot—an evolution of Microsoft Healthcare Bot with new functionality
by Lili Cheng Corporate Vice President, Conversational AI

Power Virtual Agents

Power Virtual Agents (PVA) is part of Microsoft Power Platform. In PVA, chatbots can be created with a guided, no-code graphical interface - and without the need for data scientists or developers.

In the latest integration with Bot Framework SDK, Power Virtual Agents support for Teams channel Single Sign-on is available in preview.

PVA Teams SSO—Public Preview
by Cleber Mori Senior Program Manager, Power Virtual Agents

Change log for Javascript 4.12.0:

• Upgrade package parse-url to fix the security issue [PR 3337]
• removed jsonpath [PR 3331]
• hotfix: add botbuilder-stdlib package.json reference [Commit 9c743d9f]
• hotfix: version number patterns [Commit 21510a0c]
• fix: bump orchestrator-core to 4.12.0-preview [PR 3319]
• fix: replace execute with wsrun package [PR 3317]
• hotfix: --noPrivate instead of --no-private [Commit 9864ea7e]
• Add Teams Tabs adaptive [PR 3309]
• Updated twitter account name [PR 3300]
• fix: support null memory values [PR 3290]
• fix: add eslint-plugin-import [PR 3293]
• fix: limit logging in github tests [PR 3291]
• add --no-flat flag to browserify script in AEL [PR 3292]
• feat: Added GetConversationReference/ContinueConversation actions [PR 3283]
• port: add action policies to .schema [PR 3287]
• port: remove trust service url references [PR 3285]
• add stringOrValue function [PR 3282]
• feat: LuisAdaptiveRecognizer and test mocks [PR 3275]
• Add properties property for Template class [PR 3272]
• fix: correct QnAMaker response types and expose error from server [PR 3279]
• feat: adaptive dialog functions [PR 3250]
• feat: Mock QnAMaker via http request mocks [PR 3278]
• [PORT]Use Number.Epsilon for equal check in expression [PR 3267]
• port dotnet 4966 PR [PR 3277]
• fix: luis telemetry test typos [PR 3245]
• Updated dialogManager to send EoC code like dialogHelper [PR 3270]
• [PORT]Add test for NumericEvaluator [PR 3262]
• Teams Adaptive Card Tabs [PR 3224]
• change to locale string in the string function [PR 3249]
• mark generated files [PR 3257]
• Orchestrator Recognizer: Rename misleading parameter names [PR 3251]
• Fix getting token using client certificate [PR 3247]
• fix: update access modifiers in QnAMakerDialog [PR 3230]
• fix createHandoffEvent activity.type & cleanup [[PR 3243]...

Bot Framework SDK 4.11.0

November 2020 (version 4.11.0)

Welcome to the November 2020 release of the Bot Framework SDK. We continue to focus on code quality, improving developer experience, customer requests, overall SDK improvements and partner support. We are previewing a new Cloud Adapter and other exciting things, including:

• Teams Introduction of Teams Meeting Participant API along with new features and fixes.
• Skills We continue our 'skills everywhere!' mission by reducing development friction, enabling interruptions, and additional features.
• Composer Continued improvements in deployment, Skills integration, features flags, and more!
• Orchestrator (preview) Improved samples, models, and Bot Framework Composer support
• Bot Framework Documentation We've added Adaptive Dialog support, updated docs around Adaptive Expressions, and custom .lg functions.
• CLI Improvements to merging and importing of dialogs and assets
• Virtual Assistant Improved core runtime, advancements in skills features
• Power Virtual Agents Thanks to the Bot Framework SDK, it is easier and easier to build a PVA Bot!
• HealthBot Health Bot, built using the Bot Framework, continues to advance in support of multiple Health related initiatives!

Insiders: Want to try new features as soon as possible? You can download the nightly Insiders build [C#] [JS] [Python] [CLI] and try the latest updates as soon as they are available. And for the latest Bot Framework news, updates, and content, follow us on Twitter @msbotframework!

Microsoft Teams

Continued improvements enabling features for creating bots and apps in Teams.

• Get Participant Meeting API
• CacheInfo support on Invoke responses
• OAuthInput fix
• Meeting specific notification support
• Add on_teams_team_renamed (python only)

Skills

To reduce development friction, you can now run and test skills locally with the Emulator without needing an AppId and password.

Quality for skills is critical, and we're making large invements in automated testing. That work is (mostly) still in the design phase, and feedback is very welcome:

• Functional Testing Spec
• Test Runner Spec

We're also continuing to bring features to skills to enable additional scenarios:

• Interruptions are enabled in BeginSkill.
• Update and Delete activities from a skill.

Overall SDK Improvements

Code quality and testing infrastructure have continued to be a focus for the this SDK release.

• The default branch on all repositories has been renamed to 'main'.
• We have improved typing and transcript logger middleware behavior and error handling.
• Dotnet SDK tests have been ported to xunit.
• Configurable Adaptive Dialog cycle detection.
• Form Dialog preview

Documentation

Updates and improvements to existing documentation have continued.

• Updated and expanded documentation for adaptive dialogs.
• Updated and reorganized the security and authentication topics.
• Updated information about: .lg custom functions, adaptive expressions, and memory scopes.
• Added Java (preview) reference documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/java/api/?term=microsoft.bot.builder
• Added information on how to use the Bot Framework CLI commands in support of various adaptive dialog features.
• Updated skills documentation.
• The claims validator is now required for bot a skill and skill consumer.
• Updated information about Direct Line extensions.
• Updated how to connect to some of the channels: Slack, Webex.
• Archived the SDK v3 content, available at: https://docs.microsoft.com/previous-versions/azure/bot-service/index-bf-sdk
• Updated information about the dialogs library and the overall architecture of a bot.

Cloud Adapter (not yet feature complete, dotnet only)

The Cloud Adapter introduces an enriched configuration model and enables hosting a bot in any cloud environment.

• Supports the Bot Framework protocol and auth model.
• All the constants defining the auth model are configurable.
• Note: 4.11.0 does not have full feature parity with BotFrameworkAdapter
  • Streaming support, OAuthPrompt support and full Skill support are coming soon.
  • Preview: The recommendation is to continue using BotFrameworkAapter in the 4.11.0 release unless the environment requires configurable auth constants.

Orchestrator Preview

Orchestrator is a Language Understanding arbitration (“dispatch”) technology to route incoming user utterances to an appropriate skill or to subsequent language processing service such as LUIS or QnA Maker.

• It is a transformer based solution that is optimized for conversational AI applications.
• It is built to run locally in your bot.
• It is written in C++ and is available as a library in C#, Node.js and soon Python and Java.
• The current release is designed to be used only for intent detection. Entity recognition is on the roadmap.
• Orchestrator can be used in code-first solutions or directly in Composer.
  This is a preview release with improved documentation and language models.

CLI

• The CLI will now download an merge dialog assets.
• Ordering of names while merging.
• Expose import resolver interface for cross-train/luis:build/qnamaker:build
• Region support in lg translate

Virtual Assistant

• Skills improvements
• Core runtime design updates

Composer

• Please see the detailed Bot Framework Composer release notes

HealthBot

The Health Bot Service is a cloud platform for virtual health assistants and health bots, Health Bot uses Bot Framework under the hood. With the latest upgrade to the Bot Framework SDK V4 foundation, Health Bot can be called as a Bot Framework skill or call subsequent custom Bot Framework skills. See more here: Health Bot Overview.

Power Virtual Agents

Power Virtual Agents (PVA) is part of Microsoft Power Platform. In PVA, chatbots can be created with a guided, no-code graphical interface - and without the need for data scientists or developers. In the latest integration with Bot Framework SDK, PVA can be extended to create custom solutions.

• Use Bot Framework Composer to create and connect to Bot Framework skills.
• Publish directly from Bot Framework Composer to PVA portal into PVA Topics runtime (coming soon).

4.11.0 Change Logs

• BotBuilder-Dotnet
• BotBuilder-Python
• BotBuilder-Java
• BotFramework-CLI
• BotFramework-WebChat

Change log for Javascript 4.11.0

• Fix: add adaptive-expressions-ie11 to lerna.json [PR 2960]
• Publish umd bundle to be used as script tag for expressions library [PR 2940]
• Use QnAMakerOptions, Telemetry, and logPersonalInformation flag in QnAMakerDialog [PR 2939]
• Revert "skip OrchestratorAdaptiveRecognizer tests (#2946)" [PR 2947]
• Browserify botframework-streaming [PR 2942]
• Fix fetch in token server used in E2E Streaming Test [PR 2944]
• Update issuers [PR 2949]
• Add trace activity-buffering logic when DeliveryMode is "expectReplies" [PR 2738]
• Revert "Change vmImage to ubuntu for all JS pipelines (#2931)" [PR 2948]
• Skip OrchestratorAdaptiveRecognizer tests [PR 2946]
• Documentation updates [PR 2941]
• Fix locale determination in confirm/choice prompts/inputs [PR 2534]
• Remove trusted URL logic [PR 2938]
• New botbuilder-azure-blobs package [PR 2923]
• Skills: support update and delete activities [PR 2912]
• Remove unnecessary verbose trace logging [PR 2936]
• Teams: Get Participant meeting API [PR 2884]
• Skills: local ...

Bot Framework SDK 4.10.3

Fixed

• Fix Content Security Policy issue in using unsafe new Function(), by @stevengum in PR #2753

Breaking Changes:

• Throw if IsSkillClaim and claimsValidator is null, by @EricDahlvang in PR #2764

Bot Framework SDK 4.10

August 2020 (version 4.10.0)

Welcome to the August 2020 release of the Bot Framework SDK. We are introducing some exciting Additional New Features with Updates and Enhancements. This milestone we focused on all-up quality and engineering debt, broken down across the following pillars:

• Documentation Includes improvements to existing documentation and net new documentation centered on recurring issues and developer pain points.

• Customer Supportability Improvements focused on developers seeking assistance using the Bot Framework, tools and SDKs.

• Customer Ask Implemented enhancements and feature requests from the developer community and 3rd parties using the Bot Framework SDK and tools.

• Code Quality Enforcement of code styling and format rules, increased testing code coverage, and functional tests.

• Team Agility Improved validation of SDK code and integration with supporting libraries and environments. Continuous integarion and build pipleline improvements.

Insiders: Want to try new features as soon as possible? You can download the nightly Insiders build [C#] [JS] [Python] [CLI] and try the latest updates as soon as they are available. And for the latest Bot Framework news, updates, and content, follow us on Twitter @msbotframework!

Documentation

BF Docs GitHub

Following feedback from customers and the Bot Framework Support Team, a number of net new documents have been written as well as updates to existing documentation. These are helpful towards providing answers and information relating to recurring issues from bot developers.

• Code comment documentation
• Samples readme improvements
• SDK repository readme and wiki updates
• New documents addressing recurring bot developer issues

Customer Supportability

BF Supportability GitHub

Developers using the Microsoft Bot Framework have many avenues for getting help. See additional resources Internal tools have been improved to increase the responsiveness of the engineering team in areas of most interest to developers.

• Creation of internal bots and improved tools for customer support
• Improved analytics of trends in customer reported feature requests and issues
• Coordination of labels across GitHub repositories

Customer Ask

BF Customer Ask GitHub

• Additional Teams channel lifecycle events
• Improved Application Insights integration
• Coordination of labels across Git Hub repositories
• Add Locale to ConversationUpdate
• Update CardAction to support alt text for images on buttons
• Update Skill Handler to return Resource Response
• Release of library using latest Azure Blobs storage
• Enable custom fields for Entity
• Fixes to OAuthPrompt timeout and addition of EndOnInvalidMessage
• Various bug fixes and telemetry improvements

Code Quality

• Analyzer rules in place and running (code style and format)
• Unit test code coverage and quality
• Increased profiling of the code base
• Swagger file unified across SDK repositories and version # introduced
• Specific SDKs asks and needs:
  • Settings object pattern for C# adapters
  • LG dependent files testing (C#)
  • Dependency policing (JS)
  • Integration tests with Direct Line JS and adaptive cards

Team Agility

BF Team Agility GitHub

Improvements have been made across SDK repositories towards decreased CI pipeline times, improved testing, including both functional integration and unit tests.

Speed​

• Reduce time to build for SDKs (local and remote)​
• Reduce SDK unit test duration through refactoring and/or concurrent approaches​
• Refactor ADO pipelines into smaller, separate jobs or stages​
• Run as-applicable pipelines (e.g. no style-checks on .yaml files)​

​Reliability​

• Refine or replace current monorepo/”mono-solution” setups as necessary​
• Address nondeterministic build/test failures
• Enable continuous integration for forked pull request submissions
• Complete integration tests added with bots dynamically created

Other Updates and Enhancements

• Microsoft Teams Continued improvements to Microsoft Teams API support
• Bot Framework CLI Tools Lg added as core plugin, publish preview builds to npm, other improvements
• Bot Builder Samples Readme updates, CI improvements, new Teams Typescript samples
• Composer Advancements in Skills support and Cognitive Services integration
• Web Chat Many Accessibility improvements
• Emulator Bug fixes and updates

Microsoft Teams

• SDK and OAuthPrompt now support Teams SSO
• Increased Adaptive Dialog support for Teams events
• SDK supprot for lifecyle events: ChannelRestored, TeamArchived, TeamUnarchived,TeamRestored, TeamDeleted, and TeamHardDeleted
• InstallationUpdate activity type support
• LinkToMessage added to MessageActionsPayload

Bot Framework CLI Tools

• Lg added as BF-CLI core plugin
• Enhancements and fixes to lu parser
• QnaMaker support extended
• Publish daily builds and RCs of botframework-cli to npm

Samples

• Readme updates and consolidation across language samples
• Build pipelines for samples CI
• Demonstreate using Locale in ConversationUpdate welcome message sample
• Additional Teams samples in Typescript
• Teams TaskModule samples now includes HTML/JavaScript task modules

Composer

• The Bot Framework SDK continues to support the Bot Framework Composer.

See Composer 1.1.1 Release Notes

Web Chat

• Many accessibility improvements and fixes
• Group activity by timestamp and sender
• Convert emoticon to Emoji
• Added scrolling API: allow save/restore scroll position and scroll to specific activity

Emulator

• Added an additional log panel entry on conversation start that displays the current bot's endpoint
• Fixed a bug where trying to open the sign-in link on an OAuth card when ngrok was not configured would cause the Windows File Explorer to open
• Improved CONTRIBUTING.md to more accurately reflect requisites to build the Emulator from source
• Updates to Cosmos DB service editor dialog

Additional New SDK Features

• Orchestrator: Transformer based solution that runs locally with your bot to dispatch across one or more Bot Builder Skills or LUIS applications or QnA Maker Knowledgebase.

• Microsoft.Bot.Builder.Azure.Queues (preview) Enables more easily interacting with Azure Queues and ContinueConversationLater Dialog. (Currently .NET only, coming soon to other languages)

• Microsoft.Bot.Builder.Azure.Blobs BlobsStorage and BlobsTranscriptStore implementations replacing AzureBlobStorage and AzureBlobTranscriptStore. This library uses Azure.Storage.Blobs and is a replacement for the older Microsoft.Azure.Storage.Blob used by Microsoft.Bot.Builder.Azure. (Currently .NET only, coming soon to other languages)

Changelog for v4.10.0:

• Refactor SkillDialog to call ConversationFactory.createConversationId only once [PR 2666]
• Adding unit test for custom entity strip checking [PR 2665]
• [Port] properly escape slashes in constant strings with StringExpression/ValueExpression [PR 2660]
• Change AdaptiveExpressions pre-built classes from Public to Internal [PR 2658]
• Add additionalProperties to Entity [PR 2648]
• Track unhandled events in dialog con...

Bot Framework SDK 4.9

May 2020 (version 4.9.0)

Welcome to the May 2020 release of the Bot Framework SDK. There are a number of updates in this version that we hope you will like; some of the key highlights include:

• Skills - Skills now support adaptive dialogs and all activity types, and have improved support for SSO and OAuth. The v2.1 skill manifest is now GA. We also added Bot Framework Composer support for building and consuming Skills.
• Microsoft Teams - Improvements in Microsoft Teams API support, including support in Java!
• Bot Telemetry - Mapping of Dialogs into Azure AppInsights Page View Events.
• Health Check APIs - Quickly verify a bot is running.
• Adaptive Dialogs - A more flexible, event driven dialog system for implementing multi-turn conversational patterns.
• CLI tools for Adaptive Dialogs - new ability to merge and validate adaptive schema assets.
• Language Generation - Add language and personality responses to your bot conversations.
• Adaptive Expressions - Use bot aware expressions to react to user input and drive bot functionality.
• Authentication Improvements - SSO between Bots and Skills and improvements to X.509 auth.
• Generated Dialogs (Early Preview) - Automatically create robust Bot Framework Composer assets from JSON or JSON Schema that leverage Adaptive Dialogs.
• VS Code debugger for Adaptive Dialogs (Early Preview) - Create & validate .lu and .lg documents as well as debug declaratively defined adaptive dialogs.

Insiders: Want to try new features as soon as possible? You can download the nightly Insiders build [C#] [JS] [Python] [CLI] and try the latest updates as soon as they are available. And for the latest Bot Framework news, updates, and content, follow us on Twitter @msbotframework!

Skills

Skills have been updated to work with adaptive dialogs, and both adaptive and traditional dialogs will now accept all types of activities.

The skill manifest schema has been updated to version 2.1. Improvements in this version include the ability to declare & share your language models, and define any type of activity that your skill can receive.

This release also includes authentication improvements with skills, including using SSO with dialogs, and OAuth without needing a magic code in WebChat and DirectLine.

Microsoft Teams

We continue to focus on making sure all the Teams-specific APIs are fully supported across our SDKs. This release brings full support for Microsoft Teams APIs in the preview Java SDK, including samples.

The OnTeamsMemberAdded event in the activity handler has been updated to use the get single member endpoint under the covers, which should significantly reduce latency and reliability of this event in large teams.

The TeamsChannelAccount object has been updated to include userRole (one of owner, member, or guest) and tenantId (for the user's tenantId).

Bot Telemetry

Bots now capture Page View events, native to Application Insights, whenever a dialog is started. This allows you to use the User Flows dashboard in Application Insights to see how users move through your bot, between dialogs and where they drop out.

Health Check APIs

Support was added for a new invoke named healthCheck that allows a sender to verify if a bot is responding to requests, and if trust can be established between the sender and the bot. The bot also has the option of overriding the response to add additional health information in the response.

Adaptive Dialogs

We’re also excited to make Adaptive Dialogs generally available in C# and as a preview release in JavaScript!

Adaptive Dialogs, which underpin the dialog design and management authoring features found in Bot Framework Composer, enable developers to dynamically update conversation flow based on context and events. This is especially useful when dealing with more sophisticated conversation requirements, such as context switches and interruptions. Bot Framework Skills can now also leverage Adaptive Dialogs.

Adaptive Dialogs also now support Telemetry. Data from Adaptive Dialogs, including triggers, actions and recognizers now flow into your Azure Application Insights instance.

CLI tools for Adaptive Dialogs

CLI tools for Adaptive Dialogs, Language Generation, QnaMaker and Luis Cross-train - new ability to merge and validate adaptive schema assets, augment qna and lu files, create/ update/ replace/ train/ publish LUIS and or QnA maker application and Language Generation templates manipulation.

New CLI Tools were added for management of Adaptive Dialogs.

• bf-dialog supports merging dialog schema files and verify file format correctness.
• bf-luis Adds commands to augment lu files and create/ update/ replace/ train/ publish LUIS
• bf-qnamaker Adds commands to augment qna files and create/ update/ replace/ train/ publish QnAMaker
• bf-lg Parse, collate, expand and translate lg files.

Language Generation

LG is Generally Available (GA) on both the C# and JS Platforms.

Language Generation (LG) enables you to define multiple variations of a phrase, execute simple expressions based on context, and refer to conversational memory. At the core of language generation lies template expansion and entity substitution. You can provide one-off variation for expansion as well as conditionally expanding a template. The output from language generation can be a simple text string or multi-line response or a complex object payload that a layer above language generation will use to construct a complete activity. The Bot Framework Composer natively supports language generation to produce output activities using the LG templating system.

You can use Language Generation to:

• Achieve a coherent personality, tone of voice for your bot.
• Separate business logic from presentation.
• Include variations and sophisticated composition for any of your bot's replies.
• Construct cards, suggested actions and attachments using a structured response template.

Language Generation is achieved through:

• A markdown based .lg file that contains the templates and their composition.
  Full access to the current bot's memory so you can data bind language to the state of memory.
• Parser and runtime libraries that help achieve runtime resolution.

Adaptive Expressions

Adaptive Expressions are Generally Available (GA) on both the C# and JS Platforms.

Bots use expressions to evaluate the outcome of a condition based on runtime information available in memory to the dialog or the Language Generation system. These evaluations determine how your bot reacts to user input and other factors that impact bot functionality.

Adaptive expressions were created to address this core need as well as provide an adaptive expression language that can used with the Bot Framework SDK and other conversational AI components, like Bot Framework Composer, Language Generation, Adaptive dialogs, and Adaptive Cards.

An adaptive expression can contain one or more explicit values, pre-built functions or [custom functions. Consumers of adaptive expressions also have the capability to inject additional supported functions. For example, all Language Generation templates are available as functions as well as additional functions that are only available within that component's use of adaptive expressions.

Authentication Improvements

We added support for single sign-on while using Expect Replies. This applies to SSO performed between a pair of bots: host and a skill.

For Bot Identification we've added the ability to specify sendx5c parameter for certificate authentication. This feature was requested by customers and allows for more flexibility when using cert auth.

Additional Sovereign Clouds are supported.

Generated Dialogs - Early Preview

The Bot Framework has a rich collection of conversational building blocks, but
creating a bot that feels natural to converse with requires understanding and
coordinating across language understanding, language generation and dialog
management. To simplify this process and capture best practices, we've created
the bf-generate plugin for the BotFramework CLI tool. The
generated dialog...

Bot Framework SDK 4.8

What's in this release?

SSO

• SSO support with AAD and WebChat (Docs WIP)(Sample)

Adaptive Expressions, & Language Generation

• 🎉 rc0 - this is our first release candidate for Adaptive Adaptive Expressions, & Language generation. We encourage folks to give this a try in development and non-critical scenarios.
• 🪓 BREAKING CHANGES - There is a number of breaking changes. Please see the details here: LG/ expressions

Skills

Expanded support for a number of scenarios in Skills, including

• Support for custom adapters that require a request/response flow
• Authentication with OAuth and SSO
• Expanded definitions possible in the Skills manifest file
• Handing off to a skill as part of a dialog
• v3 SDK and cross-language interop

Teams

Added support for a new get single member endpoint, and expanded support for the get paged members endpoint.

Changelog for v4.8.0:

• apply PayloadSender fix from #1886 and add unit test [PR 1887]
• API naming for LG [PR 1883]
• BufferedReplies to ExpectReplies in skill test parentBot [PR 1882]
• Clean LG/Expression [PR 1873]
• clean up activityhandler invoke path [PR 1872]
• [SSO] [Port] support for SSO to parent and child bot projects for manual testing [PR 1870]
• DONOTMERGE: Change DeliveryMode bufferedReplies to expectReplies [PR 1869]
• Add interruption support to SkillDialog and runDialog helper method [PR 1867]
• [PORT] Update Constant Expression ToString method [PR 1862]
• Add tests for SkillDialog [PR 1861]
• add memberCount and channelCount to TeamDetails [PR 1858]
• Add ephemeral option to Activity.DeliveryMode [PR 1856]
• Port: API naming for Expression [PR 1853]
• BotFrameworkAdapter and Skills classes OAuthScope changes [PR 1852]
• Update LG template content range [PR 1849]
• Adding helper for starting thread in teams [PR 1847]
• Pass custom functions to imported .lg files [PR 1845]
• add BFAdapter tests for bufferedReplies and invokeResponses [PR 1842]
• Support Skills in Azure Government [PR 1835]
• Port some LG and Expression from BotBuilder-Dotnet [PR 1834]
• add getMember and getPagedMember to teamsInfo [PR 1833]
• add protected method to allow injection of cert by overriding [PR 1830]
• Update nyc dependency [PR 1828]
• Added null check for activity.text in ConfirmPrompt [PR 1826]
• Fix expression built-in function errors and test errors [PR 1824]
• ci: add auto tagging [PR 1823]
• Update docs on valid scoreThreshold range for QnAMakerOptions [PR 1822]
• Added flags to disable recognizing choices by number or ordinal. [PR 1820]
• Marked config classes as deprecated [PR 1819]
• Initial check-in of flatten, unique and [PR 1813]
• Ensure that ABS OAuth cards are not sent by the community adapters [PR 1812]
• Add null check for from [PR 1807]
• [Expression] Fix result when the second arg is null in lastIndexOf function [PR 1805]
• added getSignInLink overload [PR 1803]
• Hond/indexof [PR 1797]
• Remove @types node dev dependency from botframework-streaming [PR 1795]
• Updating Teams Types [PR 1789]
• Add gitpod config [PR 1786]
• Port: LG error related changes [PR 1785]
• Plumb custom functions throughout. [PR 1784]
• Added buffered delivery mode support. [PR 1783]
• add skillDialog and associated classes [PR 1771]
• Port QnAMakerDialog from C# [PR 1769]
• [PORT] Treat '@{' an error instead of text in LG [PR 1768]
• create browser (es5) output in botframework-streaming [PR 1764]
• Move BotIdentityKey to BotAdapter from BotFrameworkAdapter [PR 1763]
• [Port] Forced re-execution expression within template [PR 1762]
• Updated ShowTypingMiddleware to re throw errors [PR 1761]
• [Port] Add tests around memory access path [PR 1760]
• [PORT] add string interpolation feature [PR 1759]
• Added Channels enum in botbuilder-schema for ChannelIds constants [PR 1757]
• return http state [PR 1755]
• Port: Optimize LG performace [PR 1752]
• Add documentation for public code [PR 1751]
• Enhance the functionality of the + operator [PR 1749]
• Added error messages to abortWebSocketUpgrade() [PR 1741]
• Port: Refactor LG Api [PR 1740]
• Port SSO changes from C# to JS [PR 1738]
• treat everything after first '=' as value for the property [PR 1737]
• add isTemplate function [PR 1735]
• support constant [] and {} expression [PR 1734]
• parity of extending foreach and where to work with object [PR 1733]
• parity indicesAndValues builtin function [PR 1731]
• Migrate expression namespace to adaptive-expressions [PR 1718]
• ${} instead of @{} as bounding syntax. [PR 1717]
• Add deprecate to CosmosDbStorage [PR 1715]
• Port refactor Structure LG and Analyzer [PR 1713]
• add EndOfConversation and Typing activities to ActivityHandler [PR 1706]
• migrate c# change in for adding oauth app credentials as a parameter [PR 1697]
• fix export and update unit test import [PR 1693]
• Port nested foreach\where\select in Expression from C# [PR 1688]
• [Expression] Expanding max/min functions take numeric list as arguments [PR 1674]
• [Cherry-pick to master] add generic socket closure handling [PR 1664]
• Parity of split function with C# in Expression [PR 1661]
• Update sample in Connector readme from v3 to v4 [PR 1657]
• Fix browser bot functional tests [PR 1648]
• Hash conversationId for App Insights sessionID [PR 1642]
• Kyled...

Bot Framework SDK for JavaScript v4.7.1

Welcome to the 4.7.1 release of the Bot Framework SDK for JavaScript available via NPM.

What's in this release?

This release contains bugfixes for the botframework-streaming library's typings, not forcing downstream TypeScript dependencies to adopt our tsconfig.json settings and a TrustServiceUrl fix for proactive messages from Skills.

Changelog for v4.7.1:

• Fix incorrect "typings" value in botframework-streaming [PR 1572] (Thank you @qinezh!)
• remove "dom" from bf-streaming tsconfig and refactor code [PR 1575]
• TrustServiceUrl from original conversationReference in SkillHandler [PR 1586]

Bot Framework SDK for Javascript v4.7.0

Welcome to the 4.7.0 release of the Bot Framework SDK for JavaScript available via MyGet!

What's in this release?

Skills

Adds Skills support for JS SDK. Skills enable bots to call other bots.

Streaming GA

Streaming support for JS SDK is now GA.

LUIS V3 support

This release introduces a new constructor overload for LuisRecognizer which takes an options bag for either the V2 or V3 API. We plan on using this pattern for future API releases, as well. We're looking forward to any feedback on this.

This change also deprecates the includeApiResults argument option which is now encompassed by the options bag.

LG/expressions support in preview

botbuilder-lg and botframework-expressions are released in preview. They enable support for language generation and expressions syntax in the JS SDK. You can learn more in the samples repo.

QnA Maker improvements

Adds isTest and rankerType options which enable test flows and filtering of rankings.

Cosmos DB Storage Provider improvements

Adds keySuffix and compatibilityMode options. keySuffix makes it easy to use the same Cosmos DB container for multiple bots without worrying about collision (keySuffix should be unique per bot app). compatibilityMode allows you to use existing non-partitioned storage collections. In general, we recommend not enabling compatibilityMode unless you're in a pinch as it will hit the same issues of partition key filling up after 10GB of data.

Payments deprecation

Bot Framework no longer supports payments. All associated types are marked as deprecated.

Changelog for v4.7.0:

• LuisRecognizer refactor and addition of V3 endpoint [PR 1479]
• [QnA Maker] Support for IsTest and RankerType in QnAMaker.getAnswer() [PR 1478]
• [Skills] Better exception handling and typing [PR 1474]
• [Skills] add skill support in BotFrameworkAdapter [PR 1473]
• Johtaylo/skills protocol [PR 1472]
• Update README.md with the Browser Functional Tests badge [PR 1471]
• [Skills] Use AuthenticationConfiguration [PR 1470]
• [Browser-Functional-Tests] Add browser test build YAML file [PR 1469]
• Add KeySuffix and CompatibilityMode to CosmosDbPartitionedStorage [PR 1468]
• [Streaming] Merge streaming branch into master [PR 1464]
• Update LG README.MD [PR 1463]
• Deprecate Payments [PR 1462]
• [Skills] Add SkillValidation class [PR 1461]
• Fix attemptCount [PR 1459]
• LG/Expression parity with C# (till Nov 25) [PR 1453]
• [Skills] Add BFHttpClient, ChannelServiceHandler & necessary Auth pieces for Skills [PR 1448]
• refactor: remove direct cldr-data dep [PR 1444]
• [R7, Cherry-pick] Cherry-pick TypeScript 3.5.3 pin from 4.6 branch [PR 1442]
• allows Inspection to attach anywhere within a Teams Team [PR 1434]
• Fixed several typos [PR 1422]
• Fixed a small issue in var name [PR 1421]
• Fixed the wrong function name [PR 1420]
• fix template additional newline bug [PR 1419]
• [BotFramework-schema] Add License [PR 1407]
• update package.json [PR 1402]
• add Activityfactory [PR 1401]
• Parity ChoicePrompt fix with dotnet [PR 1400]
• [Engineering] Remove typescript devDependency from botframework-streaming [PR 1392]
• [Teams] Call defaultNextEvent after .invoke activity is processed [PR 1390]
• [Functional-test] Add chrome browser functional tests [PR 1389]
• Stevenic/4.6 dialog parity [PR 1384]
• Add LG/Expression library [PR 1381]
• Fix integrationBot to match C# [PR 1379]
• Fix ChoicePrompt ListStyle.none when set via PromptOptions [PR 1373]
• [Engineering] Remove .js and .ts from .gitignore, change *.map to *.js.map [PR 1365]
• Fixed passing of CosmosClientOptions [PR 1363]
• [QnAMaker] Active learning low score variation multiplier value [PR 1359]
• added local teamsCreateConversation helper [PR 1357]