Create an Alexa skill using Watson Assistant and Serverless

In this Code Pattern, we will create an Alexa skill using Watson Assistant via the IBM Cloud Functions serverless framework.

Alexa is the voice service behind products like the Amazon Echo.

IBM Cloud Functions (based on Apache OpenWhisk) will be used to integrate Alexa with Watson Assistant.

Pre-requisites

IBM Cloud Account

IBM Cloud CLI

Amazon Developer Console

Steps

Run locally

Clone the repo
Create a Watson Assistant workspace
Configure credentials
Create an action in IBM Cloud Functions
Create an Alexa skill
Talk to it

1. Clone the repo

Clone the alexa-serverless-watson repo locally and cd to the local repo (for commands in later steps). In a terminal, run:

$ git clone https://github.com/RiyaMRoy04/alexa-serverless-watson.git
$ cd alexa-skill-serverless-watson

2. Create a Watson Assistant workspace

Create Watson Assistant service from the Catalog in IBM Cloud:

Watson Assistant

Import the watson_assistant_workspace.json:

Find the Assistant service in your IBM Cloud Dashboard.
Click on the service and then click on Launch Tool.
Go to the Workspaces tab.
Click on the import icon (next to the Workspaces Create button).
Click Choose a file, go to your cloned repo dir, and Open the watson_assistant_workspace.json file in data/watson_assistant_workspace.json.
Select Everything and click Import.

3. Configure credentials

The default runtime parameters need to be set for the action. These can be set on the command-line or via the IBM Cloud UI. Here we've provided a params.sample file for you to copy and use with the -param-file .params option (which is used in the instructions below).

Copy the params.sample to .params.

$ cp params.sample .params

Edit the .params file and add the required settings.

`params.sample:`

{
  "CONVERSATION_USERNAME": "<add_assistant_username>",
  "CONVERSATION_PASSWORD": "<add_assistant_password>",
  "WORKSPACE_ID": "<add_assistant_workspace_id>"
}

4. Create the IBM Cloud Functions action

Run the following to install the OpenWhisk bindings for IBM Cloud:

bx plugin install Cloud-Functions -r Bluemix

Use bx login to initially login or to change your target:

bx login -a <API endpoint> -o <Organization> -s <Space>

Run the following command to update your OpenWhisk bindings if they are already installed:

bx wsk package refresh

Run the following to test OpenWhisk on IBM Cloud:

bx wsk action invoke /whisk.system/utils/echo -p message hello --result

Create an action in IBM Cloud Functions

Run these commands within your cloned repo to gather Node.js requirements, zip the source files, and upload the zipped files to create a raw HTTP web action in OpenWhisk.

Note: You can use the same commands to update the action if you modify the code or the .params.

npm install
rm action.zip
zip -r action.zip main.js package* node_modules
bx wsk action update alexa-watson-new action.zip --kind nodejs:6 --web raw --param-file .params

Determine your IBM Cloud endpoint:

To find this URL, navigate to IBM Cloud Functions - Actions, click on your alexa-watson-new action and use the sidebar to navigate to Endpoints. The Web Action URL ends with .json.

5. Create an Alexa skill

Go to https://developer.amazon.com/alexa/console/ask and click the Create Skill button.

Provide a name and hit Next.

Use the Select button to create a Custom skill and hit the Create Skill button.

Provide an invocation name:

Add a custom slot type:

In the left sidebar menu, click on Slot Types (#) and hit + Add.

Use the name BAG_OF_WORDS and hit the Create custom slot type button.

Now BAG_OF_WORDS needs a slot value. Just enter Hello World and hit the plus sign so that it has a slot value.

Add a custom intent type:

In the left sidebar menu, click on Intents (#) and hit + Add.

Use the name EveryThingIntent and hit the Create custom intent button.
Add {EveryThingSlot} under Sample Utterances. Use the plus sign to create the EveryThingSlot.

Scroll down to Intent Slots (#)
Use the Select a slot type pulldown to give EveryThingSlot the slot type BAG_OF_WORDS.

Click on Save Model and then Build Model.

Configure the endpoint:

Click on Endpoint in the right-hand sidebar.
Select HTTPS as the Service Endpoint Type.
For the Default Region enter the HTTPS service endpoint which is the URL of your IBM Cloud Functions Web Action from step 4.
Use the pull-down to select My development endpoint is a sub-domain of a domain that has a wildcard certificate from a certificate authority.
Click the Save Endpoints button and BUILD THE MODEL!

6. Talk to it

Use the Test tab in the Amazon developer console.

Use the slider to enable your skill for testing. You can type or talk and test the skill in the test UI.

You can invite others to test it with the beta test feature. In order to be eligible for beta test, you must fill out most of the publishing information.

You probably shouldn't publish this example, but you are now ready to create and publish your own Alexa skill.

Sample Output

Watson Assistant Documentation

Watson Assistant Docs

Learn more

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With Watson: Want to take your Watson app to the next level? Looking to utilize Watson Brand assets? Join the With Watson program to leverage exclusive brand, marketing, and tech resources to amplify and accelerate your Watson embedded commercial solution.

** This repository is a fork of https://github.com/IBM/alexa-skill-watson-conversation with certain updates (You can leverage this code pattern if you are interested in Building Alexa skill with Redis database and Weather Channel data) **