Image: Alexa skill
Image: Alexa skill

In this article, you’ll learn the basics of Alexa Skill development by building one. But first, an introduction to Alexa Skills would be great. To know more about the python courses which will help in future career development.

Alexa Skills are like apps. Skills are voice-driven Alexa capabilities. In other words, Skills are the interface between users and Alexa. You can learn more about python and other language development through the Bootcamp courses in coding, visit the Edureify official website for more details.

We’ll handle the Alexa Skill development process in 3 parts. 1st part will be about signing in to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and creating a function and at 2nd part, we’ll use the Amazon Development Portal to configure our skills. 3rd part will be a short test of our skills. You’ll end with a simple but complete Alexa skill that can run on Amazon Echo or any device with Alexa. This tutorial uses the Alexa Skills Kit, AWS Lambda, and Python.

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Part 1

  • Sign in to AWS Management Console, if you don’t have any account then you can create a free account.
  • From the list of services, select Lambda.
  • Click the region drop-down in the upper-right corner of the console and select US East (N. Virginia), which is a supported region for Lambda functions used with the Alexa Skills Kit. To learn about Bootcamp mobile development courses, visit the Edureify website for more information.
  • Choose to Create a Function to choose a blueprint for your new function.
  • In the search filter box, type Alexa. Select blueprint Alexa-skills-kit-color-expert-python from the results.
  • Name your function. We’ll use myTeamSkill. Then, under the Lambda function handler and role, select the Create a custom role option.
  • When the IAM role management console opens, click on the Allow to go back to the previous Lambda console.
  • Scroll down and click on Create Function.
  • Copy the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) displayed in the upper-right corner of the console that starts with arn:aws:lambda:us-east.

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Part 2

  • Sign in to Amazon Development Portal, if you don’t have an account then you can create a free account.
  • Go to Create a New Alexa Skill page
  • Name your skill. This will be the name displayed to the users of the Alexa app. We’ll use Team Picker for this example.
  • Create an invocation name. This is the word or phrase that users will speak to activate the skill. We’ll go again with Team Picker (case-sensitive). Users will say, “Alexa, open Team Picker” to interact with your skill. Click the Save button to continue building Team Picker.
  • Now we will add a Custom Slot Type. Enter LIST_OF_TEAMS and then enter the following values:
  1. Manchester United
  2. Manchester City
  3. Chelsea
  4. Liverpool
  5. Tottenham Hotspur
  6. Arsenal
  7. Leicester City
  8. Everton
  9. Newcastle United
  10. Crystal Palace
  • Enter additional values if you’d like, and then choose Add.
  • Under Sample Utterances, enter all the phrases that you think users might say to interact with your skill. The more phrases you enter, the better the results. Paste the following:
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent what’s my favorite team
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent what is my favorite team
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent what’s my team
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent what is my team
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent my team
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent is my favorite team
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent get my team
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent get my favorite team
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent give me my favorite team
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent give me my team
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent what my team is
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent what is my favorite team is
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent yes
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent yup
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent sure
    • WhatsMyTeamIntent yes, please
    • MyTeamIsIntent my favorite team is {Team}
  • Click Next and wait until the interaction model finishes loading. It takes no more than a couple of seconds.
  • Select the Endpoint AWS Lambda ARN, then paste your ARN code from Part 1’s last item. Select North America as your region. For Account Linking select No, then click Next. To learn about Bootcamp courses in python, visit the Eduriefy website.

Part 3

There are three ways to test your skill:

  • Use the Service Simulator from the Test step of Color Picker development. Try entering Open Team Picker or My favorite team is Arsenal to see how Alexa responds.
  • Try the Echo Simulator Community Edition at Echoism. Simply click and hold the microphone icon and speak your commands.
  • Test your skill on your Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, or any Alexa device by saying, “Alexa, open Team Picker.”

Part 4

  • You need to track your bot’s performance regularly and keep an eye on how it is performing to make it hit the charts.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Question:- Can I program Alexa with Python?

Answer:- The Alexa Skills Kit SDK for Python simplifies the development of the back-end cloud service for your Alexa skill. A part of the Alexa Skills Kit, the SDK reduces the amount of code you need to write to process Alexa requests and responses and to handle other common skill tasks.

Question:- Which coding language is used in Alexa?

Answer:- Your code is written in Node. js for the Skill Service which lives in the Cloud (Amazon AWS, Lambda, an HTTPS service). It receives instructions to determine the actions to take in response to the user requests from the Alexa-enabled device.

Question:- How do you make a voice assistant in Python?

Answer:- Let’s write a script for Voice Assistant using Python. The query for the assistant can be manipulated as per the user’s need. Speech recognition is the process of converting audio into text. This is commonly used in voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, etc.

Question:- Can I create my own Alexa?

Answer:- There is one thing you can do, you can build your own Alexa for free. No worries if you have never written a single line of code, I will guide you through all the basics.

Question:- Can I program Alexa with Python?

Answer:- The Alexa Skills Kit SDK for Python simplifies the development of the back-end cloud service for your Alexa skill. A part of the Alexa Skills Kit, the SDK reduces the amount of code you need to write to process Alexa requests and responses and to handle other common skill tasks.

Question:- Which coding language is used in Alexa?

Answer:- Your code is written in Node. js for the Skill Service which lives in the Cloud (Amazon AWS, Lambda, an HTTPS service). It receives instructions to determine the actions to take in response to the user requests from the Alexa-enabled device.

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