Definition

A variable in athena is one way to access data, that can be stored in different context:

• Scenario
• Session
• User

Variables are accessible in templates using the % symbol and the name of the variable:

%myVariable

Note: User variables are only accessible through addins, and therefore cannot be accessed directly through % notation.

There are different ways to set variables:

• Addins
• Template statements
• Predefined variables

Addins

You can access and set variables through addins:

• contextScenario
• contextSession
• contextUser

Templates

You can access variables using the % notation. As a reminder, only scenario and session variables are accessible using this notation. To access user variables, you need to use contextUser addin.

To assign a variable, you need first to choose the scope (session or scenario). This will impact the notation:

• Scenario: use %myVar = "value"
• Session: use $myVar = "value"

When using the variable inside a template, Athena will first try to match a contextScenario variable, and will use the contextSession as a fallback:

? TEST
    -: %myVar = "scenario"
    -: $myVar = "session"
    - %myVar

In the exemple above, the result will be: scenario

? TEST
    -: $myVar = "session"
    - %myVar

In the exemple above, the result will be session because myVar is not found in scenario context

Predifed variables

lastUserMessage

lastUserMessage is a predefined variable in scenario context, that contains the following structure:

{
    "messageId": "id of the message",
    "text": "user text",
    "type": "type of the message",
    "customMessage": {
        "key": "key of the custom",
        "value": "deserialized value if json, null otherwise"
    }
}

type of message can have one of those three values:

• Text
• CustomMessage
• Event