Skill Settings

Skill settings in OVOS allow users to configure and personalize the behavior of Skills—either through the command line, configuration files, or a web-based interface. This enables advanced customization and support for external integrations, while remaining completely optional for basic usage.

Common Use Cases

  • Changing default behaviors (e.g. alarm sounds, display preferences)
  • Authenticating with third-party services (e.g. Spotify)
  • Entering longer or complex data (e.g. IP addresses, API keys)

Using Skill Settings in Your Skill

Settings are managed through a dictionary-like object available on the OVOSSkill base class. They are persisted to disk and can be updated locally by the Skill or remotely by the user via a frontend.

Settings are stored in your Skill's configuration directory, usually:

~/.config/mycroft/skills/<your_skill_id>/settings.json

Accessing Settings

You can read settings like a standard Python dictionary, but it's recommended to use .get() to avoid KeyError exceptions:

# Safely read the 'show_time' setting with a default fallback
show_time = self.settings.get("show_time", False)

⚠️ Avoid using self.settings['show_time'] directly, as it will raise a KeyError if the setting is not defined.

Also, do not access self.settings in your __init__() method—wait until the initialize() method to ensure the settings are fully loaded.

Handling Settings Updates

OVOS automatically checks for setting changes, either locally or from a remote backend. You can register a callback to react when settings change:

def initialize(self):
    self.settings_change_callback = self.on_settings_changed
    self.on_settings_changed()  # Also run immediately on start

def on_settings_changed(self):
    show_time = self.settings.get('show_time', False)
    self.trigger_time_display(show_time)

This ensures your Skill responds to user configuration changes dynamically.

Writing to Settings

You can update and persist values to the settings file simply by assigning them:

self.settings['show_time'] = True

Changes will persist across restarts unless overridden remotely via a backend or web interface.

Web-Based Skill Settings (Optional UI)

A community-built web interface, OVOS Skill Config Tool, provides a modern, user-friendly way to configure OVOS skills.

Features

  • Clean UI for managing skill-specific settings
  • Grouping and organization of Skills
  • Dark mode support
  • Built-in Basic Authentication for security

Skill Config Interface

Installation

Install via pip:

pip install ovos-skill-config-tool

Run the tool:

ovos-skill-config-tool

Access it in your browser at http://0.0.0.0:8000

Default Login

  • Username: ovos
  • Password: ovos

To customize credentials:

export OVOS_CONFIG_USERNAME=myuser
export OVOS_CONFIG_PASSWORD=mypassword
ovos-skill-config-tool

Tips

  • Always use .get(key, default) for safe reads.
  • Use initialize() instead of __init__() for anything that depends on settings.
  • Use settings callbacks to keep your Skill reactive to user changes.

See Also