Editor's Note: On June 25, we announced that developers can now use example phrase validation for any language and locale supported by Alexa.

We are excited to announce new ways to test and validate example phrases for your Alexa skills. Example phrase validation runs a series of tests on your skill’s example phrases and provides in-line real-time validation feedback. You can use this feedback to improve your skill’s example phrases and avoid related certification errors. You can validate example phrases through the Alexa developer console, or by using the new Skill Validation API (beta) through the Skill Management API (SMAPI) or Alexa Skills Kit Command-Line Interface (ASK CLI). These services are now available to skills using any language and locale supported by Alexa. 

Validate Example Phrases in the Developer Console

Example phrase validation is accessible through the Alexa developer console. When you enter example phrases on the Launch page, it verifies whether an example phrase is correct and provides guidance, as shown below:

Skill Validation API in ASK CLI and SMAPI

You can validate example phrases via ASK CLI or through SMAPI using the Skill Validation API (beta). The API runs a set of tests to validate your skill before submission for certification or at any time during development. As an example, the following command, run from the command line, validates a skill (substitute the actual skillId value) for the default development stage.

$ ask validate -s my-skill-id

The results are returned in JSON format, just as shown below when corresponding SMAPI commands are run.

The Skill Validation API can also be accessed through SMAPI, using a POST command to validate your skill, and a GET command to get the results of the validation. A JSON response is returned with the results. You can determine whether to validate the “DEVELOPMENT” or the “LIVE” stage of your skill.

See a sample JSON response with example phrase validation.

See the Skill Validation API for more implementation details.

Here are some sample commands:

POST /skills/{skillId}/stages/{stage}/validations
GET /skills/{skillId}/stages/{stage}/validations/{validationId}

The Skill Validation API is offered as a beta and may improve or change as we receive feedback and iterate on the feature. Please provide your feedback to this forum thread: Wanted: Feedback on Skill Validation API.

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