Features
========
- [\5006](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5006): Channel `hangouts` for Rasa integration with Google Hangouts Chat is now supported out-of-the-box.
- [\5389](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5389): Add an optional path to a specific directory to download and cache the pre-trained model weights for HFTransformersNLP.
- [\5422](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5422): Add options `tensorboard_log_directory` and `tensorboard_log_level` to `EmbeddingIntentClassifier`,
`DIETClasifier`, `ResponseSelector`, `EmbeddingPolicy` and `TEDPolicy`.
By default `tensorboard_log_directory` is `None`. If a valid directory is provided,
metrics are written during training. After the model is trained you can take a look
at the training metrics in tensorboard. Execute `tensorboard --logdir <path-to-given-directory>`.
Metrics can either be written after every epoch (default) or for every training step.
You can specify when to write metrics using the variable `tensorboard_log_level`.
Valid values are 'epoch' and 'minibatch'.
We also write down a model summary, i.e. layers with inputs and types, to the given directory.
Improvements
============
- [\4756](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/4756): Make response timeout configurable.
`rasa run`, `rasa shell` and `rasa x` can now be started with
`--response-timeout <int>` to configure a response timeout of `<int>` seconds.
- [\4826](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/4826): Add full retrieval intent name to message data
`ResponseSelector` will now add the full retrieval intent name
e.g. `faq/which_version` to the prediction, making it accessible
from the tracker.
- [\5258](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5258): Added `PikaEventBroker` (event-brokers-pika) support for publishing to
multiple queues. Messages are now published to a `fanout` exchange with name
`rasa-exchange` (see
[exchange-fanout](https://www.rabbitmq.com/tutorials/amqp-concepts.html#exchange-fanout)
for more information on `fanout` exchanges).
The former `queue` key is deprecated. Queues should now be
specified as a list in the `endpoints.yml` event broker config under a new key
`queues`. Example config:
{.sourceCode .yaml}
event_broker:
type: pika
url: localhost
username: username
password: password
queues:
- queue-1
- queue-2
- queue-3
- [\5416](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5416): Change `rasa init` to include `tests/conversation_tests.md` file by default.
- [\5446](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5446): The endpoint `PUT /conversations/<conversation_id>/tracker/events` no longer
adds session start events (to learn more about conversation sessions, please
see session\_config) in addition to the events which were sent in the request
payload. To achieve the old behavior send a
`GET /conversations/<conversation_id>/tracker`
request before appending events.
- [\5482](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5482): Make `scale_loss` for intents behave the same way as in versions below `1.8`, but
only scale if some of the examples in a batch has probability of the golden label more than `0.5`.
Introduce `scale_loss` for entities in `DIETClassifier`.
Bugfixes
========
- [\5205](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5205): Fixed the bug when FormPolicy was overwriting MappingPolicy prediction (e.g. `/restart`).
Priorities for mapping-policy and form-policy are no longer linear:
`FormPolicy` priority is 5, but its prediction is ignored if `MappingPolicy` is used for prediction.
- [\5215](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5215): Fixed issue related to storing Python `float` values as `decimal.Decimal` objects
in DynamoDB tracker stores. All `decimal.Decimal` objects are now converted to
`float` on tracker retrieval.
Added a new docs section on tracker-stores-dynamo.
- [\5356](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5356): Fixed bug where `FallbackPolicy` would always fall back if the fallback action is
`action_listen`.
- [\5361](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5361): Fixed bug where starting or ending a response with `\n\n` led to one of the responses returned being empty.
- [\5405](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5405): Fixes issue where model always gets retrained if multiple NLU/story files are in a
directory, by sorting the list of files.
- [\5444](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5444): Fixed ambiguous logging in DIETClassifier by adding the name of the calling class to the log message.
Improved Documentation
======================
- [\2237](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/2237): Restructure the "Evaluating models" documentation page and rename this page to testing-your-assistant.
- [\5302](https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5302): Improved documentation on how to build and deploy an action server image for use on other servers such as Rasa X deployments.
Miscellaneous internal changes
==============================
- \5340