Quick Reference: Create a Smart Home Skill for Alexa
The following resources help you build skills for smart home devices such as cameras, lights, locks, thermostats, smart TVs, and so on.
- Concepts and procedures
- API reference
- Sample code
- Blog posts
- Videos, podcasts, and webinars
- Twitch streams
Concepts and procedures
- Understand the Smart Home Skill API – The technical documentation that describes the Smart Home Skill API and how to use it.
- Steps to Build a Smart Home Skill – The steps to build a skill that controls smart home devices.
- Create a Skill and Choose the Interaction Model – An overview of how to create a skill using the developer console, and a list of links to the remaining steps that you need to take to configure and build your skill.
API reference
- Capability Interface Message Guide – A topic that describes the structure of messages that your smart home skill and Alexa exchange, and links to the API reference pages for building skills for smart home devices.
Sample code
- Smart Home GitHub repository – A repository that contains sample code and resources for Alexa smart home skill developers.
Blog posts
- Coding Smart Home Skill Adapter Directives Using Node.js – A walkthrough of how to manage the code workflow for a smart home skill adapter using Node.js and an overview of the fundamentals of the directive language, the communication protocol, and the Smart Home Skill API.
- Creating Your First Alexa Smart Home Skill – The steps that you take to create a smart home skill.
- Five Steps Before Developing a Smart Home Skill – The five prerequisites to building a smart home skill, including setting up account linking, initializing skill creation, creating an AWS Lambda function, configuring the skill, and finalizing account linking.
- Fundamentals of Smart Home Device Control, Including On/Off State – A technical walkthrough of how to control devices with the Smart Home Skill API.
- Introducing Smart Home Camera Control with Alexa – A discussion about how to use the Smart Home Skill API to enable users to view live video feeds from their smart home cameras on Echo Show.
- Managing Device Discovery for Your Alexa Smart Home Skill – A discussion of how device discovery works, how users experience it, and how to interpret information from a device.
- Test Your Smart Home Skill API Responses with Our New Validation Package – A description of how you can use the Smart Home Skill API Validation Package to debug smart home skills.
- Tips for a Successful Alexa Smart Home Skill Certification – The common pitfalls in smart home skill certification and how to avoid them.
- Use Alexa Skill Metrics Dashboard to Improve Smart Home and Flash Briefing Skill Engagement – An overview of how to use the skill metrics dashboard to analyze key engagement metrics for flash briefing and smart home skills.
Videos, podcasts, and webinars
- Smart Home with Charlie Kindel – A discussion about the launch of the Smart Home Skill API and solutions that developers are building.
- Alexa Smart Home Partner Network with Zach Parker – A discussion about smart home product innovations, new customer experiences, and current smart home industry trends.
Twitch streams
- VOD: Alexa Smart Home - Virtual Switch with C# – A live coding of a virtual switch in C#.
- VOD: Alexa Smart Home - Virtual Switch with Java – A live coding of a virtual switch in Java.
- VOD: Alexa Smart Home - Virtual Switch with Python – A live coding of a virtual switch in Python.
- Alexa Smart Home API – A webinar about the cooking capabilities of the Smart Home Skill API, including how to create and send commands to a virtual microwave.