Get Started
What is the Alexa Skills Kit?
- About Voice Interaction Models
- Index of Skill Types
- Glossary
Create Your Developer Account
Contact Alexa Developer Support
Skill Types
Alexa for Apps
- Use the Command Line
- FAQ
- Alexa for Apps V1 to V2 Migration Guide
Automotive Skills
- Connected Vehicle Skills
- Alexa Skills for Driving
Custom Voice Model Skills
- Steps to Build a Custom Skill
- Get Custom Skill Sample Code
- Understand How Users Invoke Custom Skills
- Choose the Invocation Name for a Custom Skill
- Create a Custom Skill from a Quick Start Template
- Host a Custom Skill as an AWS Lambda Function
- Host a Custom Skill as a Web Service
- Configure a Skill for Multiple Languages
- Create the Interaction Model (Intents, Slots, and Dialogs)
- Use Built-in Intents and Slot Types
- Entity Resolution
- Handle Requests Sent by Alexa
- Understand Name-free Interaction for Custom Skills
- Add Audio to a Custom Skill
  - Stream Long-Form Audio with AudioPlayer
- Alexa Quick Links
  - Create a Quick Link for Your Custom Skill
  - Create a Quick Link for Your Custom Task
- Use Display Templates to Show Content on Screens
Flash Briefing Skills
- Steps to Build a Flash Briefing Skill
- Tips to Create a Great Flash Briefing Skill
- Flash Briefing Skill Certification Checklist
- Normalize the Loudness of Audio Content
- Flash Briefing Skill API Feed Reference
Game Skills
- Alexa Web API for Games
Music, Radio, and Podcast Skills
- Steps to Build a Music, Radio, or Podcast Skill
- Radio Skills Kit
  - Use No-Code Radio Skills
- Implement Podcast Skill Features
- Upload Music or Radio Catalogs
- Upload Podcast Catalogs
- Add Premium Audio, Badging, and License Retrieval to a Music Skill
- Internationalize a Podcast Skill
- Catalog Reference
- Understand Voice Modeling
- Testing Guide
- Event Subscriptions
- Troubleshooting
- Music, Radio, and Podcast Skill API
Smart Home Skills
- Steps to Build a Smart Home Skill
- Smart Home Skill Concepts
- Smart Home Skill Types
- Tutorial: Build a Smart Home Skill
- Troubleshooting Guide
- Smart Home Skill APIs
Video Skills
- Steps to Build a Video Skill
  - Implement Video Skill Code
- State Reporting for Video Skills
- Video Skill Testing Guide
- Video Skill APIs
- Video Skills for Fire TV Apps
- Video Skills for Echo Show
Skill Development Process
Design Your Skill
- Alexa Design Guide
Build Your Skill
- Use AI-Driven Dialog Management
- Add Visuals and Audio to Your Skill
- Add Account Linking
- Use Alexa Advertising ID
  - Steps to Add Advertising ID
- Earn Money with a Skill
- Add Alexa Shopping Kit
- Include Reminders in a Skill
- Personalize the User Experience
- Expose Skill Functionality with Tasks
- Expose Skill Functionality with Triggers
- Let Skills Work Together with Skill Connections
  - Use Skill Connections to Request Tasks
- Offer Pre-Built Routines from Your Skill
  - Pre-Built Routine API Reference
  - Pre-Built Routine Primitives
- Include Timers in a Skill
  - Set Up Voice Permissions for Timers
  - Best Practices for Timers
- Use Events in a Skill
- Add Dash Replenishment
- Display Suggestions on the Home Screen
- Add Rich Media to Your Skill Detail Page
- Deprecated Features
Test and Debug Your Skill
- Test and Debug Your Custom Skill
- Test and Debug Your Smart Home Skill
- Test with the Alexa Simulator
- Beta Test a Skill
Certify and Publish Your Skill
- Requirements
- Certification Testing
  - Certification Functional Tests
  - Certification Tests for VUI and UX
- Troubleshoot Certification Failures
- Works with Alexa Certification
Monitor Your Skill Metrics and Earnings
- Analyze Your Skill Metrics
- View Your Payments and Earnings
Tools to Create and Manage Skills
- Manage Your Developer Account
- Alexa Developer Console
- Alexa-hosted Skills
- ASK Toolkit for VS Code
- ASK SDKs
- ASK CLI
- Skill Management API
- AWS Tools
Skill Developer Reference
Alexa Interface Reference
- List of Alexa Interfaces
- Message and Property Reference
- Foundational APIs
- Smart Home Skill APIs
- Video Skill APIs
Custom Skill Interface Reference
- Request and Response JSON Reference
- Request Types Reference
- Interfaces
REST API Reference
- Access Token Retrieval
- Account Linking Management
- Alexa-hosted Skill Management
- Audit Logs
- Beta Test Management
- Beta Tester Management
- Catalog Management
- Customer Profile
- Device Settings
- In-Skill Product Management
- Intent Request History
- Interaction Model Catalog Management
- Interaction Model Management
- Linked Data
- Locale Cloning
- Metrics
- Monetization
- NLU Annotation Set
- NLU Evaluation
- Person Profile
- Proactive Events
- Proactive Suggestion
- Progressive Response
- Reminders
- Resource Schema
- Skill Certification
- Skill Credentials
- Skill Development Notifications
- Skill Enablement
- Skill Invocation
- Skill Manifest
- Skill Messaging
- Skill Package Management
- Skill Publishing
- Skill Rollback
- Skill Simulation
- Skill Validation
- Smart Home Skill Evaluation
- SSL Certificates
- Timers
- Utterance Profiler
- Vendor Management
Skill Schema Reference
- Skill Manifest Schema
- Skill Manifest Examples
- Account Linking Schemas
- Interaction Model Schema
- In-Skill Product Schema
- Paid Skill Schema
- Proactive Events Schemas
- Skill Development Event Schemas
SSML Reference
- Best Practices for Using Amazon Polly Voices
- Alexa Skills Kit Sound Library
- Speechcons (Interjections)
- Test SSML Examples with the Audio Sandbox

Account Linking for Smart Home and Other Domains

Note: Sign in to the developer console to build or publish your skill.

All smart home and video skills must implement account linking to connect the identity of the Alexa user with an identity in the device cloud system. Some music skills also support account linking.

For an explanation of account linking concepts, see Account Linking Concepts for Alexa Skills. For the user experience, see How Users Experience Account Linking for Alexa Skills.

Prerequisites

To implement account linking for smart home skills, you must have the following prerequisites:

Your system must support OAuth 2.0 and the authorization code grant type.

If you don't have your own authorization server, you can use Login with Amazon (LWA) or any OAuth 2.0 provider that has a certificate signed by an Amazon-approved certificate authority. Note that you cannot use https://letsencrypt.org/, even though it's on the certificate list.
Your OAuth provider must meet the requirements for account linking for Alexa skills.

Configure account linking

You configure your skill with account linking in the Alexa developer console in the TOOLS > Account Linking section.

For details about the account linking configuration fields, access tokens, and the overall authorization code grant flow, see Configure an Authorization Code Grant.

Update your skill code with account linking logic

Each directive sent to your skill includes the access token to identify the user. Your skill code needs to validate the token, and then use it to access information about the user. For more details, see the following topics:

In addition, if you enable the Send Alexa Events permission for the skill, your skill must handle the AcceptGrant directive. If your skill doesn't handle this directive, account linking fails when the user attempts to enable your skill. For more details, see Request Access to the Alexa Event Gateway.

Automated registration

With automated registration, your skill can allow users to automatically register with your system during device setup and link that identity with their Alexa identity. To learn more about this feature, contact your Amazon business representative or fill out the contact us form.

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Last updated: Sep 10, 2024