Reference Alexa Skill Quick Start Guide

Table of Contents

• Reference Alexa Skill
  • Documentation Introduction
• Overview
• Setting up the Skill
  • Prerequisites
  • Deploying the Skill to AVS
  • Setting up the Lambda
  • Setting up a Development Environment
  • Setting up Account Linking
• Project Structure
• Intents Reference
• Terms And Conditions

Reference Alexa Skill

Documentation Introduction

This document provides guidelines to setup and configure the Reference Alexa Skill. However, this document is not a primer for JavaScript and is intended for professionals who are familiar with the following technologies:

• Nodejs
• AWS Lambda Functions
• Alexa Voice Services

Overview

The Reference Alexa Skill is a flexible IoT skill, which communicates with Elastic Path’s RESTful e-commerce API, Cortex API. Through the Cortex API, the skill uses the e-commerce capabilities provided by Elastic Path Commerce and interacts with data in a RESTful manner.

Setting up the Skill

Prerequisites

Ensure that the following software are installed:

• Git
• Node.js
• A publicly available Cortex API endpoint.
• A publicly available Account Linking Server
• A valid Amazon Web Services (AWS) Account
• A valid Amazon Developer Account

Deploying the the Skill to AVS

1. Clone or pull the alexa-skill repository.

2. In the Alexa Developer Console, create a Custom, Self-Hosted skill.

3. Select the Start From Scratch template.

4. Select the JSON Editor from menu on the left, under Interaction Model.

5. Drag the models/en-US.json file into the JSON Editor.

6. Build the Model.

7. Select the Endpoint link from the menu on the left.

8. Enter the ARN for the Lambda you create in the Setting up the Lambda section, or an HTTPS endpoint where your skill is being hosted.

9. Save Endpoints.

10. Select Test from the header menu.

11. Select Development from the Skill testing is enabled in dropdown.

12. You can now begin testing.

Setting up the Lambda

1. Clone or pull the alexa-skill repository.

2. Navigate to the alexa-skill/lambda/main.

3. To install dependencies, run the npm install --production command.

4. Zip up the contents of the current directory, including the node_modules folder.

5. In AWS, create a Lambda function with an Alexa Skills Kit trigger. Currently, only the following AWS regions support Alexa Skills Kit triggers:

• Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
• EU (Ireland)
• US East (N. Virginia)
• US West (Oregon)

6. Enter the Skill ID from the Alexa Skill in the Configure Triggers input

7. Upload the zip file you created to your Lambda

8. Create an environment variable called CORTEX_URL that points to a publicly available Cortex endpoint.

9. Save the function.

Setting up a Development Environment

Local development is enabled using the alexa-skill-local module.

1. You must complete the Deploying the Skill to AVS section before developing locally.

2. Clone or pull the alexa-skill repository.

3. Run the cd lambda/main command.

4. Modify the asl-config.json file, replacing the placeholder skillId value with your Alexa Skill ID.

5. Run the npm install command to install depenedencies.

6. Create an environment variable called CORTEX_URL that points to a publicly available Cortex endpoint, or a valid Elastic Path development environment. For more information, see The Starting Construction Guide.

7. Run the npm start command to start the alexa-skill-local server.

8. In a browser, navigate to localhost:3001 to link your local development environment to your Amazon Skill.

9. Take note the ngrok URL from the command line output.

10. In a browser, navigate to the Endpoint link under your Alexa skill.

11. Select HTTPS enpoint.

12. Enter the URL from Step 8.

13. Save Endpoints.

14. New sessions will be directed to your local skill. Changes will be hotswapped, and local Node debuggers can be attached.

Setting up Account Linking

1. Set up the Reference Account Linking server found here
2. Log into to your Alexa Developer account at developer.amazon.com and navigate Alexa>Your Alexa Consoles> Skills><Your Skill Name>
3. On the left sidebar, scroll down and select Account Linking
4. Set "Do you allow users to create an account or link to an existing account with you?" to On
5. Under Security Provider Information select Implicit Grant.
6. Fill in the fields under Security Provider Information. Refer to the chart below

Field name	field
Authorization URI	Set to the endpoint of the Account Linking server you set up in step one (Note: An https:// endpoint is required)
Client ID	An identifier for your skill
Scope	An optional list of scopes that indicating the access the Alexa user needs.
Domain List	Set to the Domain of your Account Linking endpoint

7. Press the save button
8. To test, go to the Test tab and invoke the skill. Alexa should respond with asking the user to link account. You can find more information on account linking with Alexa Skills here.

Project Structure

The lambda function lives under lambda/main.

You will find the Interaction Model for the skill under models/en-US.json. For more information on the Interaction Model, visit the Alexa Developer Documentation

Intents Reference

Below is a quick table of the intents the skill uses, the actions they represent, and some sample phrases you might use to trigger them. If you are relaying any errors found to the developers, it may be helpful to tell them which intent triggered the error.

For a complete list of sample phrases, check the Interaction Model.

Action	Sample Utterance	Intent Name
About Store	"What do you sell?"	DescribeStoreIntent
Search	"Search for {item}"	KeywordSearchIntent
Next	"Next item"	NextItemIntent
Previous	"Previous item"	PreviousItemIntent
Describe Current Product	"Tell me more about that"	DescribeProductIntent / DescribeListedProductIntent
Add to Cart	"Add that to my cart"	AddToCartIntent
Add to Wishlist	"Add that to my wishlist"	AddToWishlistIntent
Explore Cart	"What's in my cart?"	GetCartIntent
Explore Wishlist	"What's in my wishlist?"	GetWishlistIntent
Move to Wishlist	"Move item two to my wishlist"	MoveToWishlistIntent
Move to Cart	"Move item three to my cart"	MoveToCartIntent
Remove from Cart	"Remove item number three from my cart"	RemoveFromCartIntent
Remove from Wishlist	"Remove item number one from my wishlist"	RemoveFromWishlistIntent
Checkout	"I'd like to check out"	CheckOutIntent

In addition to these, the Alexa Reference Skill incorporates several out of the box Alexa intents.

Action	Sample Utterance	Intent Name
Yes	"Yes"	AMAZON.YesIntent
No	"No"	AMAZON.NoIntent
Help	"Help / What are my options?"	AMAZON.HelpIntent
Exit	"Alexa, stop / exit"	AMAZON.StopIntent
Cancel	"Cancel"	AMAZON.CancelIntent

Terms And Conditions

• Any changes to this project must be reviewed and approved by the repository owner. For more information about contributing, see the Contribution Guide.
• For more information about the license, see GPLv3 License.