Go! Call Me (Maybe)!

Designed for use with AWS Lambda and Twilio to allow an Amazon Alexa skill to call you when its an emergency.

Setup

Alexa Skill Setup

Create a new skill on the Alexa Developer Portal. The name isn't important, just make it something you remember. As for the skill's content, here's the JSON I use. You should be able to import it and adjust it according to your needs.

Twilio

Set up an account and purchase a phone number that can do both SMS and calls. You will need this, your SID, and the Auth Token for the AWS Lambda configuration.

Hosting XML For Calls

Twilio has TwiML Bins where you can put the XML for your scripts. You can't create dynamic responses, but it makes it simpler than having to manage another service.

⚠️ Regardless of where you host your XML, they need to be accessible via POST, otherwise calls made will state that there was an error.

Sample XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Response>
    <Say voice="alice">Help, it's an emergency.</Say>
    <Dial/>
</Response>

AWS Lambda

Lambda Binary

Download it from the releases tab and upload that to your AWS Lambda function. In the Handler field on the upload page, change the value to lambda_handler.

Environment Vars

You need to set the following in your configuration for your environment. If they are not setup, the lambda will not work correctly.

CONTACT_NAME                     # The name of the person being called.
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID               # The Account SID for Twilio.
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN                # The Auth Token for Twilio.
TWILIO_EMERGENCY_PHONE_NUMBER    # The phone number purchased from Twilio.
OUTBOUND_PHONE_NUMBER            # The phone number to be called and texted. 
SCRIPT_EMERGENCY_URL             # The URL of the XML (TwiML Bin) for the standard emergency call.

The following are optional. They default to the emergency-related values if unset.

TWILIO_ASLEEP_PHONE_NUMBER       # The phone number purchased from Twillio for sending a wakeup call.
TWILIO_NON_EMERGENT_PHONE_NUMBER # The phone number purchased from Twilio for sending a non-emergent call.
SCRIPT_ASLEEP_URL                # The URL of the XML (TwiML Bin) for a wakeup call.

⚠️ Phone numbers must have a leading +, or Twilio will not work. The code does check for this.

Redis Integration and Pub-Sub Notifications (Optional)

If you would like to take advantage of the pub-sub notifications that the sister application Go! Call Me Notifier utilizes, the following environment variables are required. This feature is optional, and leaving these out will not affect the way the lambda works.

You can get free Redis hosting from RedisLabs, which will cover everything this setup needs.

REDIS_URL
REDIS_PASSWORD

The following are optional, and default to emergency and nonemergent, respectively.

REDIS_CHANNEL_EMERGENCY
REDIS_CHANNEL_NONEMERGENT

Development

go get github.com/trueheart78/go-call-me-maybe

Structure should stay with the Standard Go Project Layout.

Building the Binary

Run the build/lambda.sh script and check the out/ directory for the archive to use. Make sure to set the Handler field in the AWS Lambda page to lambda_handler when uploading.