Why does this not work

First you have learning enabled, this is not recommend and will make the bot learn EVERY reply you give it as a new response.

For your scripts, the best way to debug a script is to click on the "debug" checkbox in chat and set the log level to FINE. This would give you,

WARNING -- Language:Missing function: requestJSON on: <509 #null *,a:1,c:0,p>

Fixing this gives you the error,

WARNING -- Http:Illegal character in path at index 56: https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cve/1.0/CVE-3033 - 39315

Also traversing a deep JSON object can be tricky, I would debug it by traversing 1 level at a time and printing the result. If you traverse nested array elements you need to use "elements" in Self.

Try something like:

state getCVE {
    pattern "(what) (was is) [CVE CVE-ID ID] *" template foo();
    function foo() {
        temp = Http.requestJSON("https://cve.circl.lu/api/CVE-" + Http.encode(star.toString().replace(" ", "")) );
       //severityIs = temp.result.CVE_Items[0].impact.baseMetricV3.cvssV3.baseSeverity
       descIs = temp.result.CVE_Items.elements.[0].cve.description.description_data.elements.[0].value
       if (temp == null) {
           return "I don't think so";
        }
       return (descIs);
    }
}

Thanks that debug mode is very helpful.   The JSON object "elements" command throws an error that says Invalid attribute name: [ which seems to be around the elements.[0].  Is there a doc somewhere that explains how json parsing in self works?  I can parse other things out of the json like in python but when I get to the nested elements, it throws an error.

I figured it out the .elements.[0] does not work.  But, if you use this syntax:

conversation.topic.description = resp.result.CVE_Items.get(#element, 0).cve.description.description_data.get(#element, 0).value;

it returns the nested string description.  So, the whole script which retrieves a description of a CVE inquiry is:

state cveLookUp {
pattern "(what) (was is) (CVE) *" template getCVE();

function getCVE() {
resp = Http.requestJSON("https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cve/1.0/CVE-" + Http.encode(star.toString().replace(" ", "")));
conversation.topic = star.toString();
conversation.topic.description = resp.result.CVE_Items.get(#element, 0).cve.description.description_data.get(#element, 0).value;

if (conversation.topic.description == null){
output = "CVE " + converstion.topic + " does not exist";
} else {
output = "CVE-" + conversation.topic + " is dedscribed as: " + conversation.topic.description;
}
return output;
}
}

Thanks

Glad to hear you got it working.

resp.result.CVE_Items.element[0].cve.description.description_data.element[0].value