Chatbots and Preparing a Python Environment

1A receptionist that never sleeps

Every September the office of a large secondary school in Musanze answers the same questions hundreds of times: when do classes start, what is the fee for the term, which documents does a new student bring, where is the S4 dormitory. A chatbot on the school's website or WhatsApp number could answer most of them at any hour, and pass the unusual questions to a person. In the next three lessons you will build one in Python; in the last lesson you will build another with Google Dialogflow. First you need the vocabulary of chatbots, and a Python environment that works.

2How a chatbot is put together

Not every chatbot has every part. The four main kinds differ in how they understand and how they reply:

3Preparing a Python environment

The chatbots in this unit are written in Python 3. You need three things: Python itself, a virtual environment for the project, and an editor.

1. Install Python 3 from python.org/downloads. On Windows, tick Add python.exe to PATH on the first screen of the installer. Check it with python --version (Windows) or python3 --version (macOS and Linux).
2. Create a virtual environment inside a project folder. A virtual environment is a private copy of Python with its own installed packages, so one project's libraries cannot break another's.
3. Install an editor such as Visual Studio Code with its Python extension, open the project folder, and choose the .venv interpreter when asked.

On Windows (Command Prompt):

C:\Users\Keza> mkdir schoolbot
C:\Users\Keza> cd schoolbot
C:\Users\Keza\schoolbot> python --version
Python 3.12.6
C:\Users\Keza\schoolbot> python -m venv .venv
C:\Users\Keza\schoolbot> .venv\Scripts\activate
(.venv) C:\Users\Keza\schoolbot> python -m pip install --upgrade pip
(.venv) C:\Users\Keza\schoolbot> pip install chatterbot
(.venv) C:\Users\Keza\schoolbot> pip freeze > requirements.txt

On macOS or Linux (Terminal):

$ mkdir schoolbot && cd schoolbot
$ python3 -m venv .venv
$ source .venv/bin/activate
(.venv) $ python -m pip install --upgrade pip
(.venv) $ pip install chatterbot
(.venv) $ deactivate          # leave the environment when finished

The (.venv) at the start of the prompt shows that the environment is active: python and pip now refer to the project's own copies. requirements.txt lists the exact packages, so a classmate can rebuild the same environment with pip install -r requirements.txt.

Save this script as check_env.py and run it to confirm everything is in place:

import sys
print("Python", sys.version.split()[0])
print("Running from:", sys.executable)
print("Inside a virtual environment:", sys.prefix != sys.base_prefix)

Example output, inside an active environment:

Python 3.14.6
Running from: /home/keza/schoolbot/.venv/bin/python
Inside a virtual environment: True

4Hands-on: get ready for the chatbot

1. Install Python 3 (version 3.10 or newer) if it is not already installed, and check the version.
2. Create a folder schoolbot, a virtual environment inside it, and activate it.
3. Run check_env.py. It must print Inside a virtual environment: True.
4. Open the folder in your editor and select the .venv interpreter.
5. Write ten real questions that people ask your school office. For each, write its intent name and any entities. You will use this list in the next lesson.

Check: check_env.py reports a virtual environment, and your list has ten utterances grouped into at least five intents.