Test Your Skill
This document describes the steps to test your Alexa skill during development.
Options for testing your skill
You have multiple options for testing a new skill in development:
- Utterance profiles – Use utterance profiles to test your custom interaction model. You can enter utterances and see how they resolve to the intents and slots before you write the code for your service.
- Skill simulator – Use the simulator provided on the Test page in the developer console. This gives you access to most Alexa Skills Kit features without a device. Interact with Alexa with either your voice or text.
- Alexa device – Test with an Alexa-enabled device.
- Alexa app – You can test your skill with the Alexa app for Android/iOS.
- ASK Command Line Interface (CLI) – Use the ASK CLI to test the skill from the command line. You can test your skill by using ASK CLI commands such as invoke-skill and simulate-skill. See ASK CLI Quick Start for more details about managing skills from the command line.
- Skill Management API – Use the skill testing features of the Skill Management API.
Minimum skill configuration
To enable your skill for testing, complete the minimum required configuration for the interaction model included in your skill. These settings are available on the Build page.
Custom Model minimum configuration
You can test your custom interaction model with the utterance profiler after you successfully save and build your model. You do not need to configure an endpoint for this testing.
For full end-to-end testing, complete the following configuration:
| Section | Requirement |
|---|---|
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Custom > Interaction Model |
The interaction model must have:
The model must build without errors. |
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Custom > Endpoint |
A valid AWS Lambda ARN or HTTPS endpoint.
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Depending on your the testing requirements for your skill, you might be required to fill out the following sections on the Build page:
- Custom > Interfaces: If your skill uses any of the device interfaces, enable them on this page.
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Account Linking: If your skill uses account linking, configure it here.
Note that the full account linking configuration isn't required to test intents that do not require authentication. However, it is required to test any intent that returns a
LinkAccountCardor that requires authentication. - Permissions: If your skill uses any permissions (such as for the Device Address API), enable them here.
Pre-built model minimum configuration
| Model | Required Fields |
|---|---|
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Flash Briefing |
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Smart Home |
You also need an account configured for your device cloud and discoverable devices for that account. |
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Video |
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Deploy your skill code
Before you can test your skill, you must configure the minimum required data for the skill in the developer console and deploy the code for your cloud-based service. How you deploy your service depends on the interaction model included in the skill:
| Model | Skill Service Hosting Options |
|---|---|
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Custom |
You can do either of the following:
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Flash Briefing |
N/A: In this case, your service is an RSS or JSON feed. See Flash Briefing Skill API Feed Reference. |
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Smart Home |
You must use an AWS Lambda function. See the Add a Lambda Function section in Steps to Build a Smart Home Skill. |
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Video |
You must use an AWS Lambda function. See the Add a Lambda Function section in Steps to Create a Video Skill. |
Test Your Skill in the Developer Console
The Test page includes a simulator that lets you test your skill without a device. When you are ready to test the skill, navigate to the Test page.
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If you haven't enabled testing for this skill, locate the Test is disabled for this skill option with the drop-down selection set to Off. From the drop-down list, select either Development or Live as your skill testing stage.
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If you have already enabled testing, from the Skill testing is enabled in: list, select either Development or Live as your skill testing stage, or select Off to disable testing.
A skill can only be in one stage at any time. For example, if you enable your skill for testing in the Live stage, your development skill will be disabled for testing, and your live skill will continue to be available in the developer console, SMAPI, ASK CLI and your devices that are signed in to your developer account. As part of this enablement in the developer console, the page will be redirected to the live stage URL and all session and context information will be reset. If you have any information you want to preserve, save it before proceeding. This activity will also generate a new User ID and can be used to simulate a first-time user experience. If your live skill is configured with a live lambda version, that live version will be used as part of this stage enablement.
You can use the Test page to test most functionality in a skill, including dialogs, progressive responses (with limitations), and entity resolution.
The page provides three tabs on the left for different types of testing.
| Tab | Description |
|---|---|
|
Alexa Simulator (Custom skills and smart home skills) |
Use the simulator to interact with a custom or Smart Home skill with either text or your voice. The simulator maintains the skill session with your skill just as a device would, so you can test the dialog flow. The simulator also sends any cards that your skill returns to the Alexa app the same way a device would. If your skill supports multiple languages, select the language you want to test from the drop-down list. For more details, see later sections: |
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Manual JSON (Custom skills only) |
Use manual JSON to enter a JSON request directly and see the JSON response your skill returns. This option does not maintain the skill session and is similar to testing a JSON request in the Lambda console. Note that the Device Display and Device Log options are not supported for Manual JSON. If your skill supports multiple region-specific endpoints, you can select the endpoint to test from the list near the bottom of the page. |
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Voice & Tone |
Use this to enter plain text or SSML and hear how Alexa speaks the text. Select the language you want to hear from the list at the bottom. All supported languages are available in this list, even if your skill does not support them. |
Use the Alexa simulator with custom and smart home skills
You can interact with the simulator with either text or voice. Note that the skill session does not time out the way a device would, to give you more time to enter your responses while testing. If your skill keeps the session open, you can close it with "Alexa, stop."
Enable Skill I/O to see the JSON sent to your skill and the JSON returned to Alexa for each turn of the conversation. Note that the JSON is only available for custom skills. Click on a speech bubble to see the JSON related to that turn.
Enable Device Display to see an approximation of how the skill displays on devices with screens. For details about testing APL skills in the simulator, see Test APL Skills in the Developer Console Simulator.
Enable Device Log to see the events sent to Alexa and the directives sent to the device during the skill interactions. See Intent Debugging.
Enable Alexa Smart Home (Beta) to see the ChangeReport events that the skill sends to the Alexa event gateway. This option is only available to smart home skills. For more information, see Understand State and Change Reporting and Debug Your Smart Home Skill.
When you test a custom skill with the simulator, the context.System.device.supportedInterfaces property reflects the interfaces you have selected on the Custom > Interfaces page. For example, if you selected AudioPlayer and Alexa Presentation Language, a request sent to your skill from the simulator includes this context object, indicating that the request came from a device that supports both of these interfaces (full set of properties excluded for brevity):
{
"context": {
"System": {
"device": {
"deviceId": "amzn1.ask.device.1",
"supportedInterfaces": {
"AudioPlayer": {},
"Alexa.Presentation.APL": {
"runtime": {
"maxVersion": "1.4"
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
Test on different devices with screens
You can use the simulator to test skills that display content on devices with screens. For details, see Test APL Skills in the Developer Console Simulator.
Alexa Simulator limitations
The following limitations apply to voice and text testing on the Alexa Simulator tab.
| Feature | Alexa Simulator Support |
|---|---|
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The Alexa Simulator does not render the audio playback, but the Skill I/O section shows the Since the playback does not occur, you cannot test |
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When you type test utterances, do not use date abbreviations such as "4/15/2019." Instead, write out the date as it would be spoken. For example, the following phrases generate a valid date in a date slot:
Typed values such as "2019-04-15", "4/15/2019", and "4/15" do not resolve correctly to dates. For more examples of the spoken forms that |
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The Device Address API lets you request address information associated with the user's device. When testing with the Alexa Simulator, your skill can call the Device Address API and get back a non-error response. You can also test the flow when the user has not provided the device address permission. However, note that the address fields in the response are set to The Test page cannot be configured as a full device in the Alexa app. |
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You can test skills that use the |
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The Alexa Simulator does not support testing flash briefing skills. |
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With Location Services, your skill can request dynamic location information associated with the user's device. When testing with the Alexa Simulator, your skill can test the flow when the user has not provided location services permission. However, the simulator cannot test the case where the customer has granted permission. The Test page cannot be configured as a full device in the Alexa app. |
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These requests are sent to a skill when a user interacts with controls such as a remote control. These requests cannot be tested with the Alexa Simulator. |
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The progressive response and the full response are played in the simulator in the same audio stream once the full response is ready. This means you will hear the progressive response immediately followed by the full response. |
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The simulator will not provide the reminders expected from the skill. |
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The Timers API is not supported through the simulator. |
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The simulator doesn't reprompt the user after the interaction is over, as Alexa devices do. |
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In general, Alexa Settings API allows you to retrieve the time zone, distance measurement unit, and temperature measurement unit from the Alexa settings for a user. However, if you attempt to query the Alexa Settings API using the |
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The smart home live debugger is in beta and is subject to change at any time without notice. For more details, see Debug Your Smart Home Skill. |
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The Alexa Simulator does not render the video playback, but the Skill I/O section shows the |
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Devices with character displays (such as the Echo Dot with clock) |
You can test the skill, but the Alexa Simulator doesn't show how the response would look on a character display. |
Intent debugging
In the Alexa Simulator, the Device Log shows the consideredIntents returned in the JSON response to list the intents that Alexa considered and discarded. You can use this information to perform intent debugging and determine how to use additional samples to train your model to resolve utterances to their intended intents and slots.
Test your skill on an Alexa device with your developer account
To test your skill with an Alexa-enabled device (such as an Amazon Echo), register the device with the same email address you used to sign up for your developer account on the Amazon Developer Portal. Make sure that the locale of your device matches at least one of the locales available for your skill. You can then invoke your skill with the wake word and your invocation name: "Alexa, open <invocation name>."
If you set up your device with an account other than your developer account, reset the device and then re-register it with your developer account. See the help for your specific device for details:
If you want to add back a non-developer account as a user of the device, you can do so by using the Household feature.
Test with the Alexa app
Another testing option is to use the Alexa app installed on your iOS or Android mobile device to test your skill.
Make sure that the locale of your Alexa app matches at least one of the locales available for your skill. For example, if your skill has the en-US locale, then set your Alexa app to English (United States).
To set the locale for your Alexa app
- Open the Alexa app on your mobile device.
- Navigate to More > Settings > Alexa on This Phone.
- Set the language under Language to the locale for your skill.
Related topics
Custom skills:
- Test and Debug a Custom Skill
- Host a Custom Skill as an AWS Lambda Function
- Host a Custom Skill as a Web Service
Flash briefing:
Smart home:
- Smart Home Skill API Message Reference
- Smart Home Skill Publishing Guide
- Debug Your Smart Home Skill
Video:
Developer console:
