Colang not working as expected

[mu-fazil-vk]

Hi, When I am using colang flow, it didn't passing user political message, if I remove it, then it works.
config.yml:

rails:
  input:
    flows:
      - detect political content

flows.co:

define flow detect political content
  user political message
  bot warn political

define user political message
  "politics"
  "vote"
  "government"

define bot warn political
  "Let's keep this conversation away from politics, please."

code:

async def moderate_input(messages):
    print(messages)
    response = await rails.generate_async(messages=messages, options={
        "rails": ["input"],  # Always use "input" here
        "log": {
            "activated_rails": True,
        }
    })

    print("🔍 Activated rails:")
    print(response)

response:

Ask something: hello
[{'role': 'user', 'content': 'hello'}]
🔍 Activated rails:
response=[{'role': 'assistant', 'content': ''}] llm_output=None output_data=None log=GenerationLog(activated_rails=[ActivatedRail(type='input', name='detect political content', decisions=['stop'], executed_actions=[], stop=True, additional_info=None, started_at=1751464434.368122, finished_at=1751464434.368811, duration=0.0006887912750244141)], stats=GenerationStats(input_rails_duration=0.0015857219696044922, dialog_rails_duration=None, generation_rails_duration=None, output_rails_duration=None, total_duration=0.004053831100463867, llm_calls_duration=0, llm_calls_count=0, llm_calls_total_prompt_tokens=0, llm_calls_total_completion_tokens=0, llm_calls_total_tokens=0), llm_calls=None, internal_events=None, colang_history=None) state=None

Ask something: 

[jerrieunion-coder]

out of curiosity does it works when you trying any of the examples https://docs.nvidia.com/nemo/guardrails/latest/user-guides/colang-language-syntax-guide.html ? Am asking this question because am facing similar issue as your even for flow that are part of the examples. Also, if I may ask, what LLM provider are you using ?

[AirAgentSDE]

I notice in flows.co, you have "define user political message", I guess it is not a good naming practice for colang #https://docs.nvidia.com/nemo/guardrails/latest/glossary.html, better with a verb in it.

[Pouyanpi]

Your config is using topical/dialog rails but you want to use it as input rails. Currently this is not possible.
Input rails should use actions to check content, not define user patterns:

  define flow detect political content
    $is_political = execute check_political_content
    if $is_political
      bot warn political
      stop

  define bot warn political
    "Let's keep this conversation away from politics, please."

with a python action, for example:

  async def check_political_content(context: dict):
      user_message = context.get("user_message", "").lower()
      keywords = ["politics", "vote", "government"]
      return any(keyword in user_message for keyword in keywords)

you can add it to actions.py or register it with your LLMRails instance's register_action method.

If you still want to use dialouge rails without invoking any LLM calls you might find embeddings only option handy. Have a look at https://docs.nvidia.com/nemo/guardrails/latest/user-guides/configuration-guide/guardrails-configuration.html#embeddings-only