What's new for the Bot Framework SDKs
APPLIES TO: SDK v4
The Bot Framework SDK v4.14 is an Open Source SDK that enables developers to model and build sophisticated conversations using C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python.
This article summarizes key new features and improvements in Bot Framework and Azure Bot Service.
Insiders
Want to try new features as soon as possible? You can download the nightly Insiders build [C#] [JS] [Python] [CLI] and try the latest updates as soon as they are available. And for the latest Bot Framework news, updates, and content, follow us on Twitter @msbotframework!
July 2021 - v4.14
Welcome to the July 2021 release of the Bot Framework SDK. Here are the key highlights for this release.
| Item | C# | JS | Python | Java |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Release | 4.14 (GA) | 4.14 (GA) | 4.14 (GA) | 4.14 (GA) |
| Samples | .NET Core, WebAPI | Node.js, TypeScript, es6 | Python | Java |
- Added support for
Action.Executein Adaptive Cards. - Added support for the Outlook channel. For more information, see Connect a bot to the Outlook channel for Actionable Messages (Preview).
- Added Microsoft Teams activity handler support for meeting start and end events. For more information, see How Microsoft Teams bots work.
- Added a get meeting info method to the Teams info object.
- Added information for v2.2 of the skill manifest schema. For more information, see how to Write a skill manifest.
- Various bug fixes and quality improvements in the docs and the SDK.
For more information, see Bot Framework SDK v.4.14 release notes.
May 2021 - v4.13
Welcome to the May 2021 release of the Bot Framework SDK. Some of the key highlights include:
- The Orchestrator recognizer has been released to general availability (GA). See how to Use multiple LUIS and QnA models with Orchestrator for more information.
- Added support for the new
commandandcommandResultactivities that support requests to perform specific actions. See the Bot Framework Activity schema for more about these activities. - Added C# and JavaScript support for component registration for the Bot Framework Composer. See the documentation for the 2.0 release of Composer for more information.
- The cloud adapter is GA in C#, and various skill classes were updated to use the cloud adapter's authentication abstractions.
- Single-sign-on middleware was introduced for Microsoft Teams.
For more information, see Bot Framework SDK v4.13 release notes.
March 2021 - v4.12
Welcome to the March 2021 release of the Bot Framework SDK. Some of the key highlights include:
- The Telephony channel is now available with samples in early preview.
- Microsoft Teams - new and improved samples, Adaptive Card tabs, Action.Execute (preview, C#) and Composer support (preview).
- The cloud adapter (preview 2, C#) has improved platform support with increased functionality.
- Orchestrator (preview 3) now supports more languages, and documentation has been improved.
- Bot Framework CLI Tools - LUIS applications neural training technology support, and more!
- Azure Health Bot - Microsoft Healthcare Bot service is moving to Azure, further empowering organizations to benefit from Azure's enhanced tooling, security, and compliance offerings.
- Power Virtual Agents - Bot creation, editing and publishing made easy!
For more information, see Bot Framework SDK v4.12 release notes.
November 2020 - v4.11
Welcome to the November 2020 release of the Bot Framework SDK. There are a number of updates in this version that we hope you'll enjoy:
- Teams: added support for the Participant Meeting API, and other general improvements.
- Skills: can now be run and tested locally in the Emulator without an app ID and password, improved support for skills in adaptive dialogs.
- Orchestrator (preview): a Language Understanding technology for routing incoming user utterances to an appropriate skill or to subsequent language processing service such as LUIS or QnA Maker.
- Cloud adapter (preview, .NET only): a bot adapter that supports hosting a bot in any cloud environment.
For more information, see Bot Framework SDK v4.11 release notes.
Documentation updates
Following feedback from customers and the Bot Framework Support team, a number of documents were created or updated. These are helpful towards providing answers and information relating to recurring issues from bot developers.
- Expanded code comment documentation in the SDK repositories.
- Improved
READMEfiles in the samples and SDK repositories. - New and updated documents addressing recurring bot developer issues:
- Updated and expanded the conceptual and how-to articles for adaptive dialogs.
- Updated and reorganized the authentication and security articles.
- Updates to the Bot Framework Composer documentation.
- Issue fixes and general documentation improvements to response generation, Cognitive Services, adaptive expressions, skills, channels, and other topics.
- The SDK v3 documentation has been removed from the main doc set and is available on the previous versions site.
August 2020 - v4.10
Welcome to the August 2020 release of the Bot Framework SDK. There are a number of updates in this version that we hope you'll:
- Customer supportability: improvements focused on developers seeking assistance using the Bot Framework, tools and SDKs.
- Customer requests: improvements focused on feature requests from the developer community and 3rd parties using the Bot Framework SDK and tools.
- Code quality: improvements focused on unit and functional test coverage and on the reference documentation.
- New SDK features: new preview features added in this release.
- Other improvements: other improvements to the SDK.
For more information, see Bot Framework SDK v4.10 release notes.
Documentation
Following feedback from customers and the Bot Framework Support team, a number of documents were created or updated. These are helpful towards providing answers and information relating to recurring issues from bot developers.
- Expanded code comment documentation in the SDK repositories.
- Improved
READMEfiles in the samples and SDK repositories. - New and updated documents addressing recurring bot developer issues:
- Addition of an Azure Bot Service](/azure/bot-service/) hub page that links to both the Bot Framework Composer and the Bot Framework SDK documentation.
- Updates to language generation, adaptive expressions, and adaptive dialog articles.
- Updates to the Bot Framework Composer documentation.
- Issue fixes and general documentation improvements to authentication, skills, channels, and other topics.
Customer supportability
Developers using the Microsoft Bot Framework have many resources for getting help. Internal tools have been improved to increase the responsiveness of the engineering team in areas of most interest to developers.
- Creation of internal bots and improved tools for customer support.
- Improved analytics of trends in customer reported feature requests and issues.
- Coordination of labels across GitHub repositories.
Customer requests
- Additional Teams channel lifecycle events.
- Improved Application Insights integration.
- Coordination of labels across GitHub repositories.
- Addition of a locale to the conversation update activity.
- Added alt-text support to card actions for images on buttons.
- Updated the skill handler to return a resource response object.
- Included support for the latest version of Azure Blobs storage.
- Improvements to the OAuth prompt dialog.
- Various bug fixes and telemetry improvements.
Code quality
- Enforcing code style and format rules.
- Improved unit test code coverage and quality.
- Increased profiling of the code base.
- REST API Swagger files unified across SDK repositories. Introduced a version to the files.
- Added a settings object pattern for C# adapters.
- Added dependency policing in the JavaScript SDK.
- Added integration tests for Adaptive cards and Direct Line JavaScript.
New SDK features
- Orchestrator (preview): a transformer-based solution that runs locally with your bot to dispatch across one or more Bot Builder skills, LUIS applications, or QnA Maker knowledge bases.
- Bot Builder Azure Queues (C# preview): better integration with Azure Queues and the continue conversation later dialog.
- Bot Builder Azure Blobs (C# preview): new implementations of Azure Blob storage. This library is a replacement for the older Azure Blob storage implementation.
Other improvements
- Continued improvements to Microsoft Teams API support.
- Bot Framework CLI tools added
lgas a core plugin and included other overall tool improvements. - Updated the
READMEfiles in the samples and added new Teams Typescript samples. - Composer improved support for skills and improved integration for Cognitive Services.
- Web Chat added many accessibility improvements.
- Emulator added bug fixes and updates.
Additional information
For complete release notes for all Bot Framework SDK releases, see release notes on GitHub.