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About intents

  • Concept
  • 5 minutes

The intents mechanism is one way to extend an app's functionality. An intent is a message object you define in an app that allows you to pass the user flow from one app to another. We've many reasons for sending intents. For example:

  • Share a chart with the Dashboard app
  • Show details of an app based on the appId
  • Create a new JIRA ticket and get the ticket ID

Lifecycle of an intent​

There are three elements involved in the intent mechanism:

  • Source app: Sends an intent to another app
  • Target app: Receives the intent and acts on the intent
  • AppShell: Handles the communication between the source and the target app.

Here is what happens when a source app sends an intent:

  1. The source app sends the request to AppShell, for example, using the sendIntent method from @dynatrace-sdk/navigation. The communication uses the window.postMessage API.

  2. The AppShell allows users to select an app from a list of apps that can handle the intent.

  3. The AppShell opens the target app in an iframe and passes the intent as query arguments in the URL.

  4. The target app can perform any action on the received intent.

Structure of an intent payload​

An intent payload is a set of key-value pairs that contains information you want to share.

Examples​

Here are some examples of intent payload objects:

payload with host information
const intentPayload = {
  'dt.entity.host': 'HOST-F66B242CD3A5E38E',
};
payload with dt.query and dt.timeframe information
const intentPayload = {
  'dt.query': 'timeseries avg(cpu.temperature)',
  'dt.timeframe': {
    from: 'now-2h',
    to: 'now',
  },
};

Main elements of the intent mechanism​

Source app​

The source app sends the actual intent to the AppShell.

Target app​

The target app is the app that receives an intent. Each target app has to define the type of intents it can receive in the app configuration file. It can then perform some action on the received intent.

AppShell​

The AppShell handles the intent sent by the source app.

  1. The AppShell finds a target app as follows:

    • Shows the Open with... dialog to let the user choose a target app
    • Shows an empty state dialog if no app can handle the intent

  2. The AppShell launches the target app of the given appId.

  3. The AppShell uses URL query arguments to pass the intent object synchronously to the target app as initialization data.

Matching intent with apps​

The AppShell finds installed apps capable of handling a specific intent by validating the intent object against the intents declared in the app configuration file. The validation mechanism matches the intent payload with the required properties of an intent defined in the target app. The target app defines each intent using a unique intent ID.

In the following example, a target app declares two intents with intent ID query-existing and query-new.

{
  "intents": {
    "query-existing": {
      "description": "Add a query to existing notebook",
      "properties": {
        "dt.query": {
          "required": true,
          "schema": {
            "type": "string"
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "query-new": {
      "description": "Add a query to a new notebook",
      "properties": {
        "dt.query": {
          "required": true,
          "schema": {
            "type": "string"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
Full example
app.config.json
{
  "environmentUrl": "<Your-Environment-URL>",
  "app": {
    "id": "<Your-App-ID>",
    "name": "<Your-App-Name>",
    "version": "0.0.0",
    "description": "<Your-App-Description>",
    "scopes": [],
    "intents": {
      "query-existing": {
        "description": "Add a query to existing notebook",
        "properties": {
          "dt.query": {
            "required": true,
            "schema": {
              "type": "string"
            }
          }
        }
      },
      "query-new": {
        "description": "Add a query to a new notebook",
        "properties": {
          "dt.query": {
            "required": true,
            "schema": {
              "type": "string"
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Both of these intents have the same properties. If an app sends dt.query via an intent, the target app will be listed twice on the Open with dialog. The user can select a specific action in the target app the app will pass via the intent app route using /intent/:intentId.

Note

The target app only has access to properties defined in its intent declaration. The AppShell removes additional properties sent by the source app.

Limitations​

  • The URL length: The AppShell creates the URL for each intent as a query argument. In this case, the URL length depends on the intent's definition. There is no length standard for the URL. However, here is what our tests indicated:
    • Modern browsers can handle up to 2 MB. Address bars are limited to 32 KB.
    • Many mobile browsers become unresponsive for links longer than 16 KB.
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