Python-powered chat apps with Twilio and SendGrid Transcripts
Chapter: Creating the Flask Python web app
Lecture: Concept: Calling an API in studio parameters
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At the very end of our studio flow, we gathered up all the information.
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We need to send that over to the Cloud City Cake Company and actually record the order. Tell the Bakers here is what the user,
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through chat through WhatsApp has decided they want. Let's get that started. So in order to do that, we decided to create an API of our own.
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And we did that in Flask, and we hosted it through in ngrok, Remember, one of the challenges is how does Twilio Studio running up in the cloud
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get all the way back into your machine, so it can call those API You can test it. So we did that with in ngrok,
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and that's what will be this cloud city.ngrok.io domain here. And then it goes to /api/order.
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And this time we decided we're making a change and we want to submit a complex JSON body. So we made the request method post.
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We changed the content type of application, JSON. And then we just typed out the JSON document here at the end and
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where the values went, we put whatever came from the various widgets and things in the flow. We use liquid to get that back.
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One thing to realize here is that puts the raw text into this field. But in JSON, that has to be put in quotes unless it's a number or
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something like that. But strings have to go in quotes, so we have to put double quotes around both of these.
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It's not super obvious, but that right there is a double quote, just like the one at the end of the line. The thing that's happening, I believe,
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is that blue outline that highlights the fact that this is some kind of liquid template
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section. It's Z order. Its position is above or in front of the part of the double quote, so just be really careful.
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There's weird things around, like spaces and quotes that kind of get obscured. So you just have to do a little testing.
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But be really careful on the lookout. That's double quote on both ends, even though visually, it doesn't look that way.
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So this is a really great way for the studio flow to hand off control of
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what happens next over to our flask application. and it was Python from there on up.