Editor’s note: This tutorial was updated with the new skill submission flow in April 2016.

Programming for the Alexa platform is a new paradigm for everyone. Creating a solid Voice User Interface (VUI), understanding the Alexa platform, how to interact with it and certifying your skill all need to be mastered in addition to actually programing your skill in Node.js, Python, Java or whatever your favorite language may be.

This post attempts to walk the first time Alexa skills developer through the steps involved in creating a solid skill that can actually be submitted for certification. Understanding the scope of what is involved while using a cut/paste approach to the programing required should enable you to grasp the parts involved and how they all fit together. Nothing is better for learning a thing than actually doing a thing – let’s get started!

We are going to take a reference skill called ‘Reindeer Games’, a trivia game popular on the Alexa platform, and  adapt it by creating a trivia game of your own to submit for certification.  The framework has all of the business logic, use-cases, error handling and help functions already implemented – you just need to plug in your own question/answers and edit a couple lines of script.

Important: Follow the instructions below which step you through setting up the Framework Trivia Game, ‘Reindeer Games’ – be sure you have this working before you move on to adapting it to your set of questions.