Starter-Pack-Alexa-Skill

This is a Starter Pack skill for Amazon Alexa

Setup before to start

Before everything you need to connect to your own skill and lambda function. For that please follow these instructions:

.ask/config

1. Go to .ask/config
2. Modify on line 4 the value of skill_id with your own skill id
3. Modify on line 11 the value of uri with the id of your lambda function
4. Save

package.json

1. Go in package.json from the root of the project
2. On lines 12 and 14,15 Change the value of --skill-id with your own skill id
3. Save

That's it... you can start the development now...

Good luck!

How to run

To run the project you need to follow just two simple steps:

1. Go into the root of the project and run

npm run serveo

Or Simply check this

2. Go to the project and run

npm start

Deployment

ASK CLI will create the skill and the Lambda function for you.

$ ask deploy

Set up new ask profile

Follow this guide If you get the error with no existing ~/.aws/config file, run

touch ~/.aws/config

Local development

In order to develop locally and see your changes reflected instantly, you will need to create an SSH tunnel or expose somehow your local development server. There are several services that allow you to do this, for example ngrok or serveo.net.

Using servo.net

1. You need to have an SSH client installed, then simply run

$ ssh -R 80:localhost:3000 serveo.net
Forwarding HTTP traffic from [https://YOUR_URL]
Press g to start a GUI session and ctrl-c to quit.

2. Once you see the URL, copy it and go to your Skill console.

3. Open the Endpoint menu and select HTTPS

4. Under Default Region paste the previous URL you copied.

5. On the select box choose: My development endpoint is a sub-domain of a domain that has a wildcard certificate from a certificate authority.

6. Run npm start to start the local server and begin testing the skill.

That's it.

Using ngrok

1. Install ngrok

2. Run ngrok http 3000

3. Copy the URL and follow the same steps above from 3 to 6.

NPM Scripts

Frequently used npm scripts:

Script name	Description
clean	Remove the dist folder
build	Create a build into dist folder, the code transpiled is compatible with Node 8.1
start	Runs the service locally, watching after changes
serveo	Create a ssh tunnel to be able to link the skill to your local environment
deploy	Deploy dist folder to lambda function
get:skill	Sync skill manifest with the local file
get:models	Sync models with the local files