Sample AWS Lambda function for Alexa using CloudFormation

A simple AWS Lambda function that demonstrates how to write a skill for the Amazon Echo using the Alexa SDK.

This project was adapted from the A Cloud Guru Alexa Course to include CloudFormation creation of a simple Alexa Skill stack.

Concepts

This sample shows how to create a Lambda function for handling Alexa Skill requests that:

Custom slot type: demonstrates using custom slot types to handle a finite set of known values

Setup

To run this example skill you need to do two things. The first is to deploy the example code in lambda, and the second is to configure the Alexa skill to use Lambda.

AWS Lambda Setup Using CloudFormation

Edit the create_stack.sh script to point to an S3 bucket that you have in the US-East-1 (N. Virginia) region
Edit the path to the repository in the create_stack.sh script
Run the command ./create_stack.sh from a Bash shell
Go to AWS CloudFormation in the AWS Console and check the output of the stack creation
Copy the ARN from the output to be used later in the Alexa Skill Setup

Alexa Skill Setup

Go to the Alexa Console and click Add a New Skill.
Set "CocktailHelper" as the skill name and "cocktail helper" as the invocation name, this is what is used to activate your skill. For example you would say: "Alexa, Ask Cocktail helper how to make a martini."
Select the Lambda ARN for the skill Endpoint and paste the ARN copied from above. Click Next.
Copy the custom slot types from the customSlotTypes folder. Each file in the folder represents a new custom slot type. The name of the file is the name of the custom slot type, and the values in the file are the values for the custom slot.
Copy the Intent Schema from speechAssets/IntentSchema.json.
Copy the Sample Utterances from speechAssets/SampleUtterances.txt. Click Next.
[optional] go back to the skill Information tab and copy the appId. Paste the appId into the index.js file for the variable APP_ID, then update the lambda source zip file with this change and upload to lambda again, this step makes sure the lambda function only serves request from authorized source.
You are now able to start testing your sample skill! You should be able to go to the Echo webpage and see your skill enabled.
In order to test it, try to say some of the Sample Utterances from the Examples section below.
Your skill is now saved and once you are finished testing you can continue to publish your skill.

Examples

One-shot model:

User: "Alexa, ask my Cocktail Helper how to make a martini."
Alexa: "(reads back recipe for martini)"