Alexa Skills Kit > Get Deeper
Now that you’ve learned the broad strokes of the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), dive into the details. Explore voice design best practices and learn tips for creating engaging and habitual experiences. Understand the technical differences between the skill types. Browse our collection of Application APIs, tutorials, SDKs, tools, and latest features to help you build.
Custom Skills
Create your own voice experience to deliver nearly any experience, including games, education, health and fitness, productivity, and shopping.
Game Skills
Voice games give customers an entirely new way to play games—including interactive adventures, family-friendly games, and quiz games.
Music & Audio Skills
Enable customers to access your Music, Podcast and Radio streaming service on hundreds of millions of Alexa devices at home or on the go.
Food Ordering Skills
Enable customers to find nearby restaurants and offers, and then order with Alexa or on a mobile app.
Smart Home Skills
Enable customers to use Alexa to control your cloud-connected lights, plugs, switches, thermostats, cameras, door locks, cooking appliances, and more.
Video Skills
Enable customers to use their voices to control your video device and choose which content to watch.
Flash Briefing & News Skills
Provide customers with easy access to your news headlines, RSS feeds, and other short audio and text content.
Connected Vehicle Skills
Enable customers to use Alexa to control and check status of their connected vehicles from their home or on-the-go.
Knowledge Skills
Build Q&A skills in minutes using only spreadsheets, without writing code. Publish them for devices managed by Alexa for Business, or enable them on your personal devices.
Additional Use Cases
Request APIs
Use Request APIs to receive intents and directives from Alexa in your application logic.
Response APIs
Respond to customers using audio and visual elements including text-to-speech, images, and streamed audio and video.
Personalization APIs
Create a more personalized Alexa experience based on the person speaking to Alexa and context.
System Function APIs
Expand your skill’s capabilities using additional Alexa features such as lists, event notifications, and skill connections.
Skill Components
Spend less time writing foundational code and more time on the unique aspects of your Skill by using Skill Components.
Development Tools
Use tools and APIs to help you create, manage, test, and publish skills.
Customer Engagement Tools
Explore tools to build new pathways for customers to discover your skill.
Build an Engaging Alexa Skill
Start building quickly with our beginner tutorial. You'll get hands-on, step-by-step experience creating your first custom Alexa skill.
How to Design for In-Skill Purchasing
Learn best practices for selling premium content in your skill.
How to Build a Multimodal Skill
Learn how to build visually rich skills using the Alexa Presentation Language (APL).
Build Multi-turn Skills with Alexa Conversations
By Amazon Alexa
Learn how to build a skill using machine learning with Alexa Conversations.
| Skill Type | Custom Skills | Smart Home Skills | Flash Briefing Skills | Music Skills | Video Skills | Education Skills | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Use Case |
Create your own voice experience. | Build voice-forward products for smart home and voice-enable them. | Provide customers with news headlines. | Enable customers to stream your music catalog. | Enable customers to stream your video catalog. | Enable parents and students to request information about school. | |
Interaction Model |
Custom (developer-defined) | Pre-built (Amazon-defined) | Pre-built (Amazon-defined) | Pre-built (Amazon-defined) | Pre-built (Amazon-defined) | Pre-built (Amazon-defined) | |
Application Logic APIS |
Request | Custom (based on interaction model) | Smart Home Skill API | Flash Briefing Skill API | Music Skill API | Video Skill API | Education Skill API |
| Response | Text to speech, pre-recorded audio, multimodal display | Device control | RSS feed readout | Music stream | Video stream | Student information | |
| Account Linking | ✓ | ✓ | ✖ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Personalization | ✓ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | |
| System Function | ✓ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | |
| Transaction | ✓ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | |
| SDKs | Python, Node.js, Java | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | |
Development Tools |
Skill Management | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Skill Testing | ✓ | ✓ |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Interaction Model Testing | ✓ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | |
| Analytics | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
