This is a demonstration of using Api.ai and the Web Speech APIs (via the excellent SpeechKITT library) to add a voice interface to a web application. In this case, that application is the Spree e-commerce platform.
You can watch a presentation of this demo on YouTube.
In order to get this up and running, you'll need an account at Api.ai. Create a new agent, and upload the entities and intents found in app/assets/voice. Then create a .env file and add the following line:
API_AI_CLIENT_ACCESS_TOKEN=
Be sure to add your agent's client access token to the right of the =, obvs.
From there, it should just be the normal Rails app setup rigamarole.
Check out the diff between the demo and master branches to see what was done.
Great question! You're a smart one. The rest of Spree happens to be written in it, and the purpose of this exercise was to make-believe that they had hired Voxable to add a voice interface to their product. Rather than convincing them (and charging them) to completely rewrite their front-end into React in ES6, we fit the interface into their existing technology stack - the one their team is already familiar with.