bus-events.md

MessageBus Events Reference

All events use the OVOS Message format: {type, data, context}.

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Utterance / Intent Flow

Event	Direction	Description
recognizer_loop:utterance	listener → core	User utterance, triggers intent pipeline
add_context	skill → core	Add a context entity to the session
remove_context	skill → core	Remove a named context entity
clear_context	skill → core	Clear all context entities
ovos.utterance.cancelled	core → *	Utterance was cancelled (cancel word detected)
ovos.utterance.handled	core → *	Utterance processing complete (match or failure)
complete_intent_failure	core → *	No pipeline stage could handle the utterance

Intent Service API

Event	Direction	Description
intent.service.intent.get	* → core	Query the pipeline for an intent without triggering it
intent.service.intent.reply	core → *	Response to intent.service.intent.get
intent.service.pipelines.reload	* → core	Reload all pipeline plugins
intent.service.skills.activate	skill → core	Mark a skill as active in the session
intent.service.skills.deactivate	skill → core	Remove a skill from the active list
intent.service.active_skills.get	* → core	Query the current active skill list
mycroft.intents.is_ready	* → core	Health-check: is IntentService ready?
ovos.intent.list	* → core	Query what the intent manifest holds (INTENT-4 §10.1); optional filters skill_id, lang, session_id
ovos.intent.list.response	core → *	Response to ovos.intent.list: {ok, intents: [{skill_id, intent_name, lang, method, enabled, session_id}]}
ovos.intent.describe	* → core	Fetch stored registration payloads (INTENT-4 §10.2); skill_id is required and bounds the reply, intent_name, lang, method and session_id are optional filters
ovos.intent.describe.response	core → *	Response to ovos.intent.describe: {ok, definitions: [{skill_id, intent_name, lang, method, session_id, definition}]}, ordered default session first then by session, intent, language and method, or {ok: false, error}

Skill Manager

Event	Direction	Description
mycroft.skills.initialized	core → *	All startup skills loaded, manager ready
mycroft.skills.train	core → *	Request pipeline intent training
mycroft.skills.trained	* → core	Training complete
mycroft.skill.loaded	core → *	A skill was successfully loaded
mycroft.skills.list	core → *	Response to skillmanager.list
mycroft.skills.error	core → *	Some skills failed to load on startup
skillmanager.list	* → core	Request list of loaded skills
skillmanager.activate	* → core	Activate (load) a skill by ID
skillmanager.deactivate	* → core	Deactivate (unload) a skill by ID
skillmanager.keep	* → core	Deactivate all skills except one
skillmanager.rescan	* → core	Scan for newly installed skills now instead of waiting for the periodic scan
skillmanager.rescan.response	core → *	Response to skillmanager.rescan: {loaded: [skill_id, ...]}, the ids that pass loaded; empty when it loaded nothing
ovos.skills.settings_changed	core → *	A skill's settings.json file changed

Converse

Event	Direction	Description
converse:skill	* → core	Route an utterance to a specific skill's converse handler
{skill_id}.converse.request	core → skill	Ask a skill to handle converse
skill.converse.get_response.enable	skill → core	Lock converse to this skill (during get_response)
skill.converse.get_response.disable	skill → core	Release converse lock

Fallback

Event	Direction	Description
ovos.skills.fallback.register	skill → core	Register as a fallback skill with a priority
ovos.skills.fallback.deregister	skill → core	Deregister from fallback

Skill Installer

Event	Direction	Description
ovos.skills.install	* → core	Install skill packages via pip
ovos.skills.install.complete	core → *	Install succeeded; SkillManager runs a discovery pass on this report
ovos.skills.install.failed	core → *	Install failed: {error, detail}, detail being the tail of the installer's output
ovos.skills.uninstall	* → core	Uninstall skill packages
ovos.skills.uninstall.complete	core → *	Uninstall succeeded; SkillManager unloads the skills that are no longer discoverable
ovos.skills.uninstall.failed	core → *	Uninstall failed: {error, detail}
ovos.pip.install	* → core	Install arbitrary pip packages
ovos.pip.install.complete	core → *	Install succeeded; SkillManager runs a discovery pass on this report
ovos.pip.install.failed	core → *	Install failed: {error, detail}
ovos.pip.uninstall	* → core	Uninstall arbitrary pip packages
ovos.pip.uninstall.complete	core → *	Uninstall succeeded; SkillManager unloads the skills that are no longer discoverable
ovos.pip.uninstall.failed	core → *	Uninstall failed: {error, detail}

Connectivity / Network

Event	Direction	Description
mycroft.network.connected	PHAL → *	Local network is available
mycroft.internet.connected	PHAL → *	Internet is reachable
mycroft.network.disconnected	PHAL → *	Network lost
mycroft.internet.disconnected	PHAL → *	Internet lost
mycroft.gui.available	GUI → *	GUI client connected
mycroft.gui.unavailable	GUI → *	GUI client disconnected
ovos.PHAL.internet_check	core → PHAL	Query current network/internet status

Audio

Event	Direction	Description
mycroft.audio.play_sound	core → audio	Play a sound file by URI

Skill Activation (per-skill)

Event	Direction	Description
{skill_id}.activate	core → skill	Skill has been activated in the session

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Cross-References

Message format

All events use the OVOS Message format. See ovos-bus-client for the full Message API: fields, routing methods (reply, forward, response), and dig_for_message: → ovos-bus-client/docs/message.md

Session serialisation

Every reply message carries the current Session serialised under context.session. Skills and pipeline plugins can read/modify the session from the message context. See: → ovos-bus-client/docs/session.md

recognizer_loop:utterance: upstream source

This event is produced by ovos-dinkum-listener at the end of the STT pipeline. Its data contains utterances (list) and its context carries stt_lang, session, and any listener-level transformer additions. See: → ovos-dinkum-listener/docs/voice-loop.md

mycroft.audio.play_sound: downstream consumer

Consumed by ovos-audio. The uri field can be a file path or URL. See: → ovos-audio/docs/audio-service.md

Connectivity events: upstream source

mycroft.network.connected, mycroft.internet.connected, etc. are produced by the connectivity PHAL plugin. The ovos.PHAL.internet_check request/response pattern is described in: → ovos-PHAL/docs/index.md

GUI events

GUI-related bus events (mycroft.gui.available, mycroft.gui.unavailable, gui.page.show, etc.) are documented in the GUI service: → ovos-gui/docs/bus-protocol.md

Skill-side events

Skills emit and handle many additional events not listed here (intent handlers, get_response, OCP media, etc.). See: → ovos-workshop/docs/decorators.md → ovos-workshop/docs/ovos-skill.md

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