question

The scenario is having multiple possible non-trivial tasks within a single skill - e.g. 'Alexa - tell to do "A"' (where there is a choice of several unrelated or semi-related tasks, "A" "B" "C" etc.). I want to use FSMs - each task represented by a single FSM. However, multiple tasks within a single skill complicates this design... Would you combine/refactor all tasks/FSMs into a single (huge) FSM? It's always possible, but seems like a testing/maintainance/extensibility/diagramming nightmare. Or do you split out the single skill into multiple skills? Easy, but not as appealing - the analogy is having one app in the App Store that does multiple things vs. multiple apps that do one thing - I prefer the first approach assuming size isn't a factor. To summarize, I prefer using a separate FSM for each task for for ease of maintenance, diagramming, implementation, testing, and extensibility - but am not quite sure how to design this when there are multiple tasks. The initial part is easy, fetching the appropriate FSM based on Intent. But what about task-jumping (intentional or not), serial dependency (i.e. do "A" before "B"), partial dependency (do "some of "A" before "B"), testing, diagramming, maintenance, etc. And while I am a huge proponent of FSMs, their shortcomings (both diagrammatically and voice-design-wise) are becoming apparent when it comes to extending functionality - for example, if I want to add "Start Over" functionality or the ability to "go back" and change an answer that was given 3 answers ago, etc, the changes in diagramming, code, voice-interaction, and test-cases become non-trivial. Yes, there are workarounds and hacks (and my favorite - just disallowing things) for all of this but I'm looking for an elegant solution. Any recommended advice, best practices, or design patterns? This seems analogous to the ubiquitous phone tree with multiple options (i.e. calling a Dr's office - are you a patient, do you want billing, to make an appointment, lab results, to schedule a procedure, refills, etc) so it's probably nothing new, although phone trees are hardly a model of a good user experience. Thanks in Advance