Describe the solution you'd like
It would be helpful to easily manage a Bot's project configuration, allowing the user to specify any of their different attributes. The idea is to provide a useful tool for those developers that are starting to work with their first bots.
Describe alternatives you've considered
Create a Visual Studio Extension for managing Bot Configurations, where the user will be able to add any of the bot's properties, which include the Bot Name, the services it might have (endpoints, QnA services, Luis services, etc) with their respective properties (like the endpoint itself, the name, appId, appPassword). Also, it would be great if the tool provides an (optional) way for encrypting the Bot configuration (NOTE: if the bot is encrypted, the encryption key must be shown after the encryption process, and only one time).
The Wizard could be similar to this mock sample:
Basically, it could have the next sections:
- Endpoints: allows defining multiple endpoints for the bot configuration file, specifying the name, URL, appID & appPassword (these last two might be optional)
- Services: similar to the previous one, but allows adding any kind of service (QnA, Luis, etc)
- Encryption: allows users to encrypt the bot configuration. If they decided to do it, the encryption key will be shown only once.
- Additional information: Here the user will specify additional information like the bot configuration filename.
Regarding the Bot Configuration storage (which file will be used to store the settings), these are some alternatives to implement:
-
Alternative 01
Use an appSettings file to store all the non sensitive information of the Bot along with secret manager files, which will be used to store the sensitive information (like appPasswords)
-
Alternative 02
Use Azure Key Vault
-
Alternative 03
Use a custom file for storing the Bot configuration. Its name will be also customizable.
To review:
We created a POC in #174 to showcase a possible approach to implement this feature.
Describe the solution you'd like
It would be helpful to easily manage a Bot's project configuration, allowing the user to specify any of their different attributes. The idea is to provide a useful tool for those developers that are starting to work with their first bots.
Describe alternatives you've considered
Create a Visual Studio Extension for managing Bot Configurations, where the user will be able to add any of the bot's properties, which include the Bot Name, the services it might have (endpoints, QnA services, Luis services, etc) with their respective properties (like the endpoint itself, the name, appId, appPassword). Also, it would be great if the tool provides an (optional) way for encrypting the Bot configuration (NOTE: if the bot is encrypted, the encryption key must be shown after the encryption process, and only one time).
The Wizard could be similar to this mock sample:
Basically, it could have the next sections:
Regarding the Bot Configuration storage (which file will be used to store the settings), these are some alternatives to implement:
Alternative 01
Use an appSettings file to store all the non sensitive information of the Bot along with secret manager files, which will be used to store the sensitive information (like appPasswords)
Alternative 02
Use Azure Key Vault
Alternative 03
Use a custom file for storing the Bot configuration. Its name will be also customizable.
To review:
We created a POC in #174 to showcase a possible approach to implement this feature.