Persona Pipeline

The ovos-persona-pipeline-plugin provides a dynamic way to integrate persona-based conversational behavior into the OVOS pipeline system. It allows you to route user utterances to AI personas instead of skill matchers, depending on context and configuration.

Overview

The persona-pipeline is a plugin for the OVOS pipeline architecture. It dynamically delegates user utterances to a configured Persona, which attempts to resolve the intent using a sequence of Solver Plugins (e.g., LLMs, search tools, knowledge bases).

You can configure it to:

  • 🔀 Intercept all utterances and give full control to the persona.
  • 🧠 Fall back to the persona only if skills don't match.
  • ⚙️ Operate based on confidence tiers (high/medium/low).

Plugin Structure

The plugin is composed of two components:

Plugin Name Usage
ovos-persona-pipeline-plugin-high For active persona interactions
ovos-persona-pipeline-plugin-low Fallback persona handling

You must insert these plugin IDs in your mycroft.conf under the intents.pipeline key to activate persona handling at the appropriate tier.

Configuration

{
  "intents": {
    "persona": {
      "handle_fallback": true,
      "default_persona": "Remote Llama",
      "short-term-memory": true
    },
    "pipeline": [
      // Depending on strategy, insert plugin here
    ]
  }
}

persona section options:

Key Description
handle_fallback Enables fallback routing when no persona is active
default_persona Sets a persona to use by default (e.g., after boot or reset)
short-term-memory Maintains conversation state within a session (boolean)

Pipeline Strategies

1. Full Control (Persona-First)

In this mode, personas override all skills. The persona handles every utterance unless explicitly deactivated.

"pipeline": [
  "ovos-persona-pipeline-plugin-high",
  "stop_high",
  "converse",
  "padatious_high",
  "adapt_high",
  ...
]
  • ✅ Best for immersive chatbot experiences
  • ⚠️ Skills like music, alarms, and weather will not trigger unless persona is disabled

2. Hybrid Mode (Skills First)

Only unmatched or low-confidence utterances are routed to the persona.

"pipeline": [
  "stop_high",
  "converse",
  "padatious_high",
  "adapt_high",
  "ovos-persona-pipeline-plugin-high",
  "fallback_medium",
  ...
]
  • ✅ Preserves traditional voice assistant behavior
  • 💬 Persona fills in where skills fall short

3. Fallback Mode Only

Even when no persona is active, this mode allows the pipeline to fall back to a default persona for unmatched utterances.

"pipeline": [
  ...
  "fallback_medium",
  "ovos-persona-pipeline-plugin-low",
  "fallback_low"
]
  • ✅ Replaces skill-ovos-fallback-chatgpt
  • 🔄 Fallbacks to a default persona response for a consistent assistant feel

Persona Resolution Flow

  1. Utterance Received
  2. Pipeline matchers are checked in order.
  3. If persona-pipeline is reached:
    • If a persona is active, send utterance to that persona.
    • If no persona is active and handle_fallback is enabled, use the default_persona.
  4. The persona delegates to its configured solvers until one returns a response.
  5. The pipeline returns the matched response back to the user.

Persona Configuration

Personas are defined in:

~/.config/ovos_persona/*.json

Example:

{
  "name": "Remote Llama",
  "solvers": [
    "ovos-solver-openai-plugin",
    "ovos-solver-failure-plugin"
  ],
  "ovos-solver-openai-plugin": {
    "api_url": "https://llama.smartgic.io/v1",
    "key": "sk-xxx",
    "persona": "friendly and concise assistant"
  }
}

Each persona defines a solvers list.

  • Solvers are attempted in order.
  • The first solver to return a valid result ends the search.
  • Include a "ovos-solver-failure-plugin" as a final fallback for graceful error handling.

Persona Intents

"ovos-persona-pipeline-plugin-high" supports a set of core voice intents to manage persona interactions seamlessly.

These intents provide out-of-the-box functionality for controlling the Persona Service, ensuring smooth integration with the conversational pipeline and enhancing user experience.

List Personas

Example Utterances:

  • "What personas are available?"
  • "Can you list the personas?"
  • "What personas can I use?"

Check Active Persona

Example Utterances:

  • "Who am I talking to right now?"
  • "Is there an active persona?"
  • "Which persona is in use?"

Activate a Persona

Example Utterances:

  • "Connect me to {persona}"
  • "Enable {persona}"
  • "Awaken the {persona} assistant"
  • "Start a conversation with {persona}"
  • "Let me chat with {persona}"

Single-Shot Persona Questions

Enables users to query a persona directly without entering an interactive session.

Example Utterances:

  • "Ask {persona} what they think about {utterance}"
  • "What does {persona} say about {utterance}?"
  • "Query {persona} for insights on {utterance}"
  • "Ask {persona} for their perspective on {utterance}"

Stop Conversation

Example Utterances:

  • "Stop the interaction"
  • "Terminate persona"
  • "Deactivate the chatbot"
  • "Go dormant"
  • "Enough talking"
  • "Shut up"