alexa-template

This is an opinionated template for Alexa skill development. It provides everything you need to start professional, test driven development right away.

Development

Pre-requisites

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 init

You 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_skill

You need to download NodeJS dependencies:

$ npm install

This repository requires a BASH command line interface.

Deploy to AWS

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

1. deploy to specified environment with

$ npm run deploy --prefix=lambda/custom -- --stage [green|blue] --config [dev|production]

2. From the provided output of the last command copy the value of SkillLambdaFunctionQualifiedArn stripping off colon plus number (e.g., :1) and paste it as URI value in .ask/config.

Second: Deploy Skill

$  npm run deploy

Deployment Strategy: Blue / Green

To have a seamless blue/green deployment experience with Alexa skills all three layers are independently managed.

1. Alexa models and skill definition is deployed with ask-cli/Alexa Skill Management API (SMAPI)
2. Lambda function is deployed with serverless framework
3. 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 |
                       |                                      |                 |
                       +-------------------------------------->                 |
                                                              +-----------------+