Actions on Google smart home app test fail

Question

I am developing a smart home app for google home to control smart devices. I use gactions to push my app for testing:

gactions test --action_package action.json --project <project-name>

Everything works fine until today, the test command returns error:

Pushing the app for the Assistant for testing...
ERROR: Failed to test the app for the Assistant
ERROR: Invalid JSON payload received. Unknown name "device_control" at 'preview_
action_package.action_package.actions[0]': Cannot find field.
Field Violations:
#  Field                                             Description
1  preview_action_package.action_package.actions[0]  Invalid JSON payload receiv
ed. Unknown name "device_control" at 'preview_action_package.action_package.acti
ons[0]': Cannot find field.
2017/05/26 09:39:10 Server did not return HTTP 200

here is my action.json, it's not changed since created:

{
    "actions": [{
    "name": "actions.devices",
    "deviceControl": {
    },
    "fulfillment": {
      "conversationName": "automation"
    }
  }],
    "conversations": {
      "automation": {
        "name": "automation",
        "url": "<my web endpoint>"
      }
    }
}

There is no device_control in my action.json. After some try, it seems the parser treat 'C' as '_c'.

Is this an issue on Google's end?

Answer 1

Google's JSON handling often treats camelCaseNaming and underscore_naming as equivalent. In this case, deviceControl and device_control are referencing the same thing.

The current (as of 18 May 2017) specification for an Action in the action package does not include deviceControl as a valid field. The only reference I can find to deviceControl is in descriptive documentation about the action package, but it is similarly left blank and not described there.

You can probably safely remove this entry.

Answer 2

just remove that:

"deviceControl": { },

in your action package, then it will work.

I just verified this way works.