Alexa Skills Kit > Get Deeper > Request APIs
Receive Requests
Alexa communicates with your application logic via a request-response mechanism using HTTP over SSL/TLS. When a user interacts with an Alexa skill, your service receives a POST request containing a JSON body. The request body contains the parameters necessary for your service to perform its logic and generate a JSON-formatted response.
Capability Interfaces
Each skill type provides a capability interface, or API, that defines the structure of requests and responses that your application logic will use. See below for additional details.
ASK SDKs
If you build a custom skill and host your application logic in AWS Lambda, you can use the Alexa Skills Kit SDKs to reduce the amount of code you must write to receive and respond to requests.
Did you know you know Alexa developers can build and host an application logic for most Alexa skills for free using Amazon Web Services (AWS)?
Custom Skills
When you build a custom skill, you define how customers' spoken input maps to the requests, or intents, that your skill can handle, and the arguments for each. When a customer speaks to your skill, Alexa processes the speech for you, and sends you the intent and arguments.
Smart Home Skills
You use capability interfaces in the Smart Home Skill API to describe your devices and its capabilities. When a customer asks Alexa to control one of your supported capabilities, Alexa sends the appropriate request, or directive, to your application logic.
Music Skills
You can use the Music Skill API to integrate your music service so that customers can play from your catalog on Alexa devices. After you upload your content catalog, Alexa will send you requests such as initiate playback and get next item.
Video Skills
You can use the Video Skill API to integrate your video skill with the Alexa service so that customers can control video devices and consume video content without invoking a specific skill. When a customer asks Alexa to play a video, Alexa will turn on a device and route users to the content they want.
Flash Briefing Skills
The Flash Briefing Skill API does not require you to receive customer requests or respond. Instead, you update you latest content with JSON or RSS and Alexa will play it when customers ask or a routine is invoked.
| Date | Name | Summary | Locale Availability | Links | Release Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10/21/2020 | Select Built-in Intent | Lets users indicate that they want to select a particular item, such as an item on a list | All | Documentation | Beta |
7/22/2020 |
Alexa Conversations |
Create Alexa skills that feel more natural with fewer lines of code |
US |
|
Beta |
7/22/2020 |
Multi-Value Slots (MVS) |
Receive multiple slot values and respond to more complex utterances |
All English language locales |
Beta |
|
7/22/2020 |
Alexa Entities |
Retrieve more information on slot values for a better customer experience |
All |
Preview |
|
3/26/2020 |
Sensitivity Tuning for Fallback Intent |
Sensitivity tuning lets you tune your skill model to respond to more customer requests with the Fallback Intent |
US, DE |
Generally Available |
