Sharing information between intents

Amazon Lex supports sharing information between intents. To share between intents, use output contexts or session attributes.

To use output contexts, you define an output context when you create or update an intent. When the intent is fulfilled, responses from Amazon Lex V2 contain the context and slot values from the intent as context parameters. You can use these parameters as default values in subsequent intents or in you application code or Lambda functions.

To use session attributes, you set the attributes in your Lambda or application code. For example, a user of the ShoeOrdering bot starts by ordering shoes. The bot engages in a conversation with the user, gathering slot data, such as shoe size, color, and brand. When the user places an order, the Lambda function that fulfills the order sets the orderNumber session attribute, which contains the order number. To get the status of the order, the user uses the GetOrderStatus intent. The bot can ask the user for slot data, such as order number and order date. When the bot has the required information, it returns the status of the order.

If you think that your users might switch intents during the same session, you can design your bot to return the status of the latest order. Instead of asking the user for order information again, you use the orderNumber session attribute to share information across intents and fulfill the GetOrderStatus intent. The bot does this by returning the status of the last order that the user placed.