Build a Skill in 20 Minutes

Step 1: Create the skill

In Step 1, you'll learn how to start a new custom skill and configure the invocation name;

Step 1 has two sub-steps:

• First, sign in
• Next, create your skill
• Last, change the skill invocation name

First, sign in

To get started, you need to sign in to the Alexa developer console with your Amazon developer account.

To sign in to the developer console

• Open the Alexa developer console Sign-In page, enter your Amazon developer account credentials, and then click Sign-In.

Next, create your skill

1. In the upper-right corner of the developer console, click Create Skill.

   

2. On the Create a new skill page, in the Skill name field, enter Cake Time.

   

3. Under Default language, select English (US).
4. Under 1. Choose a model to add to your skill, select Custom.

5. Under 2. Choose a method to host your skill's backend resources, select Alexa-Hosted (Node.js), or select Alexa-hosted (Python).

   Note: Note: Skills have a front-end voice user interface (VUI) and a back-end data access layer. The VUI is where you map utterances (what the customer says) into an intent (the desired action). You must decide how to handle the customer's intent in the data access layer: Host the skill yourself using an AWS Lambda function or HTTPS endpoint, or choose Alexa to host the skill for you. In this workshop, Alexa will host the skill for you.

6. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Create skill.

   

7. Under Choose a template to add to your skill, select Start from Scratch.

8. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Continue with template. It takes a few moments for AWS to provision resources for your skill.

   

9. When the process completes, you will be taken to the Build tab of your newly created skill in the Alexa developer console.

Last, change the skill invocation name

The first step to configuring a skill is to update the skill's invocation name. As you recall from Module 2, to begin to interact with a skill, a user says the skill's invocation name.

1. In the Alexa Developer Console, while still on the Build tab, on the left-hand menu, click Invocations.

2. You will see the current invocation name in the Skill Invocation name field.

   Note: Feel free to use whatever invocation name you would like. The rest of this workshop will assume that "Cake Time" is the invocation name. Simply replace that in future instructions if you choose a different invocation name.

3. At the top of the page, click Save Model, click Build Model.

• Previous: Build a Skill in 20 Min
• Next: Step 2: Add a Greeting

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