This is an opinionated template for Alexa skill development. It provides everything you need to start professional, test driven development right away.
This is a NodeJS Lambda function using serverless and the AWS CLI and skill defintion to be used by ASK CLI.
You need to install and initialize ASK CLI as a first step with
$ ask initYou need an AWS account and an Amazon developer account to create an Alexa Skill.
Now you can create a new skill project in the current directory.
$ ask new --template GettingStarted --url https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Pindar/alexa-template/master/templates.json --skill-name my_new_skillYou need to download NodeJS dependencies:
$ npm installThis repository requires a BASH command line interface.
Preperation
Create your .env.[test|dev|prod].yml files based on lambda/custom/.env.example.yml. You can add more configuration there and reference it in serverless.yml or in your js function.
First: Deploy Lambda
- deploy to specified environment with
$ npm run deploy --prefix=lambda/custom -- --stage [green|blue] --config [dev|production]- From the provided output of the last command copy the value of
SkillLambdaFunctionQualifiedArnstripping off colon plus number (e.g.,:1) and paste it as URI value in.ask/config.
Second: Deploy Skill
$ npm run deployTo have a seamless blue/green deployment experience with Alexa skills all three layers are independently managed.
- Alexa models and skill definition is deployed with ask-cli/Alexa Skill Management API (SMAPI)
- Lambda function is deployed with serverless framework
- Storage is deployed with aws-cli cloudformation templates
V1: GREEN is Live, BLUE is in development
+--------------------+ +----------------+ +-----------------+ | | | | | | | Alexa Development +------> Skill BLUE +----------------> DynamoDB DEV | | models | | | | | | skill +----+ | | | | +-+------------------+ | +----------------+ +-----------------+ | | +--------------------+ | +----------------+ +-----------------+ | | | | | | | | Alexa Live +------> Skill GREEN +----------------> DynamoDB Prod | | models | | | | | | | skills +-+ | | | | | +--------------------+ | | +----------------+ +-----------------+ | | | | +-----------------+ | | | | | +-----------------------------------> S3 Assets Store | | | | +--------------------------------------> | +-----------------+ CERTIFICATION: BLUE connected to production database
+--------------------+ +----------------+ +-----------------+ | | | | | | | Alexa Development +------> Skill BLUE +----------+ | DynamoDB DEV | | models | | | | | | | skill +----+ | | | | | +--------------------+ | +----------------+ | +-----------------+ | | | | +--------------------+ | +----------------+ | +-----------------+ | | | | | +-----> | | Alexa Live +------> Skill GREEN +----------------> DynamoDB PROD | | models | | | | | | | skills +-+ | | | | | +--------------------+ | | +----------------+ +-----------------+ | | | | +-----------------+ | | | | | +-----------------------------------> S3 Assets Store | | | | +--------------------------------------> | +-----------------+ V2: BLUE is Live, GREEN is in development
+--------------------+ +----------------+ +-----------------+ | | | | | | | Alexa Live +------> Skill BLUE +----------+ | DynamoDB DEV | | models | | | | | | | skill +----+ | | +----------> | +--------------------+ | +----------------+ | | +-----------------+ | | | | | | +--------------------+ | +----------------+ | | +-----------------+ | | | | | | +-----> | | Alexa Development +------> Skill GREEN +-----+ | DynamoDB PROD | | models | | | | | | | skills +-+ | | | | | +--------------------+ | | +----------------+ +-----------------+ | | | | +-----------------+ | | | | | +-----------------------------------> S3 Assets Store | | | | +--------------------------------------> | +-----------------+