Message types

The HiveMind can be seen as a global OpenVoiceOS bus shared across devices, but not everyone gets every message!

Messages consist of 2 parts, a message_type and a payload.

The message_type defines how the message is routed. Each node may ignore specific message_types (either globally or per client) depending on its configuration.

The payload can be another HiveMessage, a OpenVoiceOS Message, or even binary, depending on the message_type.

• Message types
• Payload Messages
  • Bus
  • Shared Bus
• Transport Messages
  • Broadcast
  • Escalate
  • Propagate

Payload Messages

the payload of these messages is a OVOS Message object

Bus

BUS is single hop and flows from slave -> master and master -> slave

when master receives a BUS message, it will check it's global whitelist/blacklist and slave permissions, if the slave is authorized to inject that message in the ovos-core messagebus then it will be injected. Any messages from master's ovos-core that are a direct response to the injected message will be forwarded back to the slave

Permissions can be defined as a combination of msg_type, intent_type, skill_id, accessKey and ip_address rules

you can find the dedicated page on how these messages are handled by OVOS here

Valid payloads for OVOS can be found here

The most common example will be injecting a user utterance and receiving the responses, here is the output from master -> slave to the injected utterance "tell me a joke"

{'msg_type': 'bus', 'payload': {'type': 'skill.converse.request', 'data': {'skill_id': 'mycroft-joke.mycroftai', 'utterances': ['tell me a joke'], 'lang': 'en-us'}, 'context': {'source': 'HiveMind', 'destination': 'tcp4:127.0.0.1:52772', 'platform': 'HiveMessageBusClientV0.0.1', 'peer': 'tcp4:127.0.0.1:52772', 'client_name': 'HiveMindV0.7'}}, 'route': [], 'node': None, 'source_peer': 'tcp4:0.0.0.0:5678'}
{'msg_type': 'bus', 'payload': {'type': 'mycroft-joke.mycroftai:JokingIntent', 'data': {'intent_type': 'mycroft-joke.mycroftai:JokingIntent', 'mycroft_joke_mycroftaiJoke': 'joke', 'target': None, 'confidence': 0.3333333333333333, '__tags__': [{'match': 'joke', 'key': 'joke', 'start_token': 3, 'entities': [{'key': 'joke', 'match': 'joke', 'data': [['joke', 'mycroft_joke_mycroftaiJoke']], 'confidence': 1.0}], 'end_token': 3, 'from_context': False}], 'utterance': 'tell me a joke'}, 'context': {'source': 'HiveMind', 'destination': 'tcp4:127.0.0.1:52772', 'platform': 'HiveMessageBusClientV0.0.1', 'peer': 'tcp4:127.0.0.1:52772', 'client_name': 'HiveMindV0.7'}}, 'route': [], 'node': None, 'source_peer': 'tcp4:0.0.0.0:5678'}
{'msg_type': 'bus', 'payload': {'type': 'mycroft.skill.handler.start', 'data': {'name': 'JokingSkill.handle_general_joke'}, 'context': {'source': 'HiveMind', 'destination': 'tcp4:127.0.0.1:52772', 'platform': 'HiveMessageBusClientV0.0.1', 'peer': 'tcp4:127.0.0.1:52772', 'client_name': 'HiveMindV0.7'}}, 'route': [], 'node': None, 'source_peer': 'tcp4:0.0.0.0:5678'}
{'msg_type': 'bus', 'payload': {'type': 'speak', 'data': {'utterance': "When Chuck Norris breaks the build, you can't fix it, because there is not a single line of code left.", 'expect_response': False, 'meta': {'skill': 'JokingSkill'}}, 'context': {'source': 'HiveMind', 'destination': 'tcp4:127.0.0.1:52772', 'platform': 'HiveMessageBusClientV0.0.1', 'peer': 'tcp4:127.0.0.1:52772', 'client_name': 'HiveMindV0.7'}}, 'route': [], 'node': None, 'source_peer': 'tcp4:0.0.0.0:5678'}
{'msg_type': 'bus', 'payload': {'type': 'mycroft.skill.handler.complete', 'data': {'name': 'JokingSkill.handle_general_joke'}, 'context': {'source': 'HiveMind', 'destination': 'tcp4:127.0.0.1:52772', 'platform': 'HiveMessageBusClientV0.0.1', 'peer': 'tcp4:127.0.0.1:52772', 'client_name': 'HiveMindV0.7'}}, 'route': [], 'node': None, 'source_peer': 'tcp4:0.0.0.0:5678'}

Shared Bus

SHARED_BUS is single hop and flows from slave -> master

the master passively monitors everything going on the slave ovos-core instance's messagebus

SHARED_BUS needs to be explicitly enabled in the slave device configuration, by default the ovos-core bus is not shared

in the case of terminals, messages of the type BUS are injected in their master, these will also be forwarded as SHARED_BUS to the next master

Transport Messages

the payload of these messages is another HiveMessage object

Broadcast

BROADCAST is multi-hop and flows from master -> slave

Send message to all of the recipient's slaves ("send the message down")

Escalate

ESCALATE is multi-hop and flows from slave -> master

Send message up the authority chain, never to a slave ("send the message up")

Propagate

PROPAGATE is multi-hop and flows both from master -> slave and slave -> master

Send message to all your direct connections ("send the message everywhere")