ID fields in the Bot Framework

Article
10/13/2022

APPLIES TO: SDK v4

This guide describes the characteristics of ID fields in the Bot Framework.

Channel ID

Every Bot Framework channel is identified by a unique ID.

Example: "channelId": "slack"

Channel IDs serve as namespaces for other IDs. Runtime calls in the Bot Framework protocol must take place within the context of a channel; the channel gives meaning to the conversation and account IDs used when communicating.

By convention all channel IDs are lowercase. Channels guarantee that the channel IDs they emit have consistent casing, and thus bots may use ordinal comparisons to establish equivalence.

Rules for channel IDs

Channel IDs are case-sensitive.

Bot Handle

Every bot that has been registered with the Azure AI Bot Service has a bot handle.

Example: FooBot

A bot handle represents a bot's registration with the online Azure AI Bot Service. This registration is associated with an HTTP webhook endpoint and registrations with channels.

The Azure AI Bot Service ensures uniqueness of bot handles. The Azure portal performs a case-insensitive uniqueness check (meaning that case variations of bot handle are treated as a single handle) although this is a characteristic of the Azure portal, and not necessarily the bot handle itself.

Rules for bot handles

Bot handles are unique (case-insensitive) within the Bot Framework.

App ID

Every bot that has been registered with the Azure AI Bot Service has an App ID.

Note

Previously, apps were commonly referred to as "MSA Apps" or "MSA/AAD Apps." Apps are now more commonly referred to simply as "apps", but some protocol elements may refer to apps as "MSA Apps" in perpetuity.

Example: "msaAppId": "353826a6-4557-45f8-8d88-6aa0526b8f77"

An app represents a registration with the Identity team's App portal, and serves as the service-to-service identity mechanism within the Bot Framework runtime protocol. Apps may have other non-bot associations, such as websites and mobile/desktop applications.

Every registered bot has exactly one app. Although it's not possible for a bot owner to independently change which app is associated with their bot, the Bot Framework team can do so in a few exceptional cases.

Bots and channels may use app IDs to uniquely identify a registered bot.

App IDs are guaranteed to be GUIDs. App IDs should be compared without case sensitivity.

Rules for app IDs

App IDs are unique (GUID comparison) within the Microsoft App platform.
Every bot has exactly one corresponding app.
Changing which app a bot is associated with requires the assistance of the Bot Framework team.

Channel Account

Every bot and user has an account within each channel. The account contains an identifier (id) and other informative bot non-structural data, like an optional name.

Example: "from": { "id": "john.doe@contoso.com", "name": "John Doe" }

This account describes the address within the channel where messages may be sent and received. In some cases, these registrations exist within a single service, such as Facebook. In others, they're registered across many systems (email addresses, phone numbers). In more anonymous channels, such as Web Chat, the registration may be ephemeral.

Channel accounts are nested within channels. A Facebook account, for example, is simply a number. This number may have a different meaning in other channels, and it doesn't have meaning outside all channels.

The relationship between channel accounts and users (actual people) depends on conventions associated with each channel. For example, an SMS number typically refers to one person, but the number may be transferred to someone else. Conversely, a Facebook account typically refers to one person in perpetuity, although it isn't uncommon for two people to share a Facebook account.

In most channels, it's appropriate to think of a channel account as a kind of mailbox where messages can be delivered. It's typical for most channels to allow multiple address to map to a single mailbox. For example, "jdoe@contoso.com" and "john.doe@service.contoso.com" may resolve to the same inbox. Some channels go a step further and alter the account's address based on which bot is accessing it. For example, Facebook alters user IDs so every bot has a different address for sending and receiving messages.

While it's possible in some cases to establish equivalency between addresses, establishing equivalency between mailboxes and equivalency between people requires knowledge of the conventions within the channel, and is in many cases not possible.

A bot is informed of its channel account address via the recipient field on activities sent to the bot.

Rules for channel accounts

Channel accounts have meaning only within their associated channel.
More than one ID may resolve to the same account.
Ordinal comparison may be used to establish that two IDs are the same.
There's generally no comparison that can be used to identify whether two different IDs resolve to the same account, bot or person.
The stability of associations between IDs, accounts, mailboxes, and people depend on the channel.

Conversation ID

Messages are sent and received in the context of a conversation, which is identifiable by ID.

Example: "conversation": { "id": "1234" }

A conversation contains an exchange of messages and other activities. Every conversation has zero or more activities, and every activity appears in exactly one conversation. Conversations may be perpetual, or may have distinct starts and ends. The process of creating, modifying, or ending a conversation occurs within the channel—a conversation only exists while the channel is aware of it—and the characteristics of these processes are established by the channel.

The activities within a conversation are sent by users and bots. The definition for which users "participate" in a conversation varies by channel, and can theoretically include present users, users who have ever received a message, users who sent a message.

Several channels—such as SMS, and possibly others—have the quirk that the conversation ID assigned to a 1:1 conversation is the remote channel account ID. This quirk has two side-effects:

The conversation ID is subjective, based on who is viewing it. If Participants A and B are talking, participant A sees the conversation ID to be "B", and participant B sees the conversation ID to be "A."
If the bot has multiple channel accounts within this channel (for example, if the bot has two SMS numbers), the conversation ID isn't sufficient to uniquely identify the conversation within the bot's field of view.

Thus, a conversation ID doesn't necessarily uniquely identify a single conversation within a channel even for a single bot.

Rules for conversation IDs

Conversations have meaning only within their associated channel.
More than one ID may resolve to the same conversation.
Ordinal equality doesn't necessarily establish that two conversation IDs are the same conversation, although in most cases, it does.

Activity ID

Activities are sent and received within the Bot Framework protocol, and these are sometimes identifiable.

Example: "id": "5678"

Activity IDs are optional and employed by channels to give the bot a way to reference the ID in subsequent API calls, if they're available:

Replying to a particular activity
Querying for the list of participants at the activity level

Because no further use cases have been established, there are no additional rules for the treatment of activity IDs.