This document discusses developing Alexa skills. It covers what an Alexa skill is, how skills are invoked, the development phases of testing, versioning and certification. It also describes different testing methods including the Alexa simulator, Lambda test events and asking Alexa directly. The document provides an example skill for finding distances and discusses managing application and session state. It concludes with recommendations for additional resources on developing Alexa skills.

1. Brown Bag - Developing Alexa Skills
evgeny goldin@
September 13, 2017

2. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a

3. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
What is Alexa Skill?

4. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a

5. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Invoking a skill:
● Alexa, ask / tell <Skill Name> <Utterance>
○ <Utterance>
○ ..
● Alexa, open <Skill Name>
○ <Utterance>
○ ..
● Help
● Cancel / Stop

6. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Where is us-east-1?

7. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Phases:
● Development
● Testing
● Versioning - arn:aws:lambda:..:WhereIs:1
● Certification
● Monitoring
● Alarming

8. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Testing:
● Skill Testing

9. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Testing:
● Skill Testing
● Lambda test event

10. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Testing:
● Skill Testing
● Lambda test event
● Echosim.io

11. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Testing:
● Skill Testing
● Lambda test event
● Echosim.io
● Alexa

12. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Testing:
● Skill Testing
● Lambda test event
● Echosim.io
● Alexa
● aws lambda invoke
● ask api invoke-skill

13. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
How Far:
● Alexa, ask How Far is Yellowstone Park?
○ <Destination>
○ <Destination> from <Origin>
○ How Far is <Destination> from <Origin>

14. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
How Far:
● Alexa, ask How Far is Yellowstone Park?
○ <Destination>
○ <Destination> from <Origin>
○ How Far is <Destination> from <Origin>
● Anything else becomes a <Destination>!
○ “Garbage” in, garbage out

15. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
● Batman House
● North Korea
● Jamaica
● New Delhi
● Erevan
● Good morning
● Thank you
● You suck?

16. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
● Batman House
● North Korea
● Jamaica
● New Delhi
● Erevan
● Good morning
● Thank you
● Issaquah!

17. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
State management:
● Application state
○ const ALEXA_ENDPOINT = 'api.amazonalexa.com';
● Session state / cache:
○ this.attributes.sessionStarted = Date.now();
○ Session stats, “Default Origin” cache
○ Multi-turn dialogs or skill’s state machine
● userId / deviceID state:
○ const dynamodb = new AWS.DynamoDB();

18. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Testing:
● Skill Testing
● Lambda test event
● Echosim.io
● Alexa
● aws lambda invoke
● ask api invoke-skill

19. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Gotchas:
● emit(response) ends Lambda function
● HTTP errors, timeouts, retries, alarming on metrics
●

20. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Tools & Friends:
● Alexa2Lambda
● Echosim.io
● alexafsm
● Skill metrics
● CloudWatch - Logs, Dashboard, Metrics, Alarms
● SNS + Pushover (poor man on-calls)
● Bespoken.io - local Skill development (+ logging/monitoring)

21. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Wish List:
● Built-in HTTP client (errors, timeouts, retries)
● Errors reporting, alarming on “graceful failures”
● Built-in testing with certification checklist
● CI / Canary testing with sample utterances
● Proper communication channel with skill users!
○ Forum, announcements, skill guide
○ Allow to reply to reviews
● Version control when enabling (v1, v2, $LATEST)

22. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
Where to go for more:
● developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit
● github.com/alexa/alexa-cookbook
● github.com/evgeny-goldin/how-far-alexa-skill
● youtube.com/c/alexadevelopers
● developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/tag/Alexa
● forums.developer.amazon.com/spaces/165/index.html
● ASK CLI and API
● References: SSML, Request, Request / Response
● hackster.io/amazon-alexa

23. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a

24. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit/alexa-developer-skill-promotion

25. Alexa Skill - When all you need is a
developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit/alexa-developer-skill-promotion

26. developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit/alexa-aws-credits

27. developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit/rewards