Is it possible to create empty intents for button-only use?

Rasa Open Source
1

I may be trying to do things incorrectly here, so please forgive me, as it’s my first attempt at creating a bot.

I have a workflow in mind (think: flowchart) that isn’t well-served by forms, as it’s really a sequence of detected intents and not real “information” the user is submitting that needs to be used later.

That being said, I’m also trying to further guardrail the user along certain paths. I’m attempting to do this with buttons. However, this involves creating intents that are essentially empty because the button is directly specifying the intent. And, for single-example intents, training generates a warning (which is frustrating).

For example, think of a story that results in the bot uttering “Do you like turtles?” with the button “yes” and the button “no.”

As of right now, the only thing I can see to do is to create an intent:

- intent: likes_turtles
  examples: |
    - like_turtles

And a button:

  utter_likes turtles_question:
  - text: "Do you like turtles?"
    buttons:
    - title: "Yes"
      payload: '/likes_turtles'
    - title: "No"
      payload: '/dislikes_turtles'

This generates a training warning but does work.

Is this the right/best way?

2

Why don’t you create two intents, affirm and deny?

3

The focus of my question is not this specific “yes/no” example, but rather how to properly handle when the intended interaction with the chat bot is by buttons only. In the case of simple “yes/no,” sure, I could use an affirm and deny intent. But my question si not about simple yes/no interactions. It is about buttons and empty intents.