Create and Manage Skills in the Developer Console
The developer console provides a streamlined experience to help you create, manage, and publish skills.
- Overall skill development process
- Manage access to the Developer Console
- Open the Developer Console
- Create a new skill
- Edit an existing skill
- Update your live skill instantly
- Where can I find…
- Related topics
Overall skill development process
The developer console organizes skill building into the following main tasks:
-
Use Build to set up your skill, configure the interaction model, and specify the endpoints for your service.
The specific options you complete here depend on the model you add to the skill. For example, for a skill with a custom model, you create intents and sample utterances. For a skill with the pre-built smart home model, you provide the endpoint and account linking configuration.
- Use Test to test your skill with either text or voice.
- Use Distribution to preview how your skill will appear in the skill store.
- Use Certification to validate your skill, run pre-certification tests, and then submit the skill for certification.
- Use Analytics to review metrics for your skill such as number utterances, customers, and intents invoked.





See also:
- Build Your Skill
- Test Your Skill
- Define Skill Store Details and Availability
- Test and Submit Your Skill for Certification
- View Skill Analytics
Manage access to the Developer Console
The first user associated with an Alexa developer account is considered the owner and will retain full rights to administer the developer account. Additional users can be invited to have access to the developer account. Invited users will have the rights associated with the role(s) assigned to the user. All roles will grant users the full access to create, modify and delete Alexa skills using the developer console. The Administrator and Analyst roles will also have access to the Earnings and Payments sections. The Administrator and Developer roles will have access to create, modify and delete Alexa skills using ASK CLI and SMAPI. Finally, users will also have rights to other parts of the developer console as described in the role descriptions.
Open the Developer Console
You can open the developer console, then create a new skill or edit an existing skill.
- Go to developer.amazon.com/alexa.
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Click Your Alexa Consoles, and then click Skills.
The developer console opens and displays any skills you have already created.
The developer console displays a list of all your skills. You can edit any of these skills directly from this list.
Create a new skill
When you create a new skill, you provide a configuration that lets Alexa do the following:
- Route requests to the AWS Lambda function or web service that implements the skill. AWS Lambda is a service offering by Amazon Web Services.
- Display information about the skill in the Amazon Alexa App. The app shows all published skills, as well as all of your own skills currently under development.
To create a new skill, open the console and click Create Skill.
For more about how you create and configure a skill, see Create a Skill and Choose the Interaction Model.
If you are familiar with the previous version of the developer console, see Where Can I Find… to see where you can configuration options in the developer console.
Edit an existing skill
To edit an existing skill:
- Open the developer console.
- Find the existing skill in the list and click Edit.
If you are familiar with the previous version of the developer console, see Where Can I Find… to see where you can configuration options in the developer console.
For details about using the console, see:
- Create a Skill and Choose the Interaction Model
- Build Your Skill
- Test Your Skill
- Define Skill Store Details and Availability
- Test and Submit Your Skill for Certification
- View Skill Usage Analytics
- View Your Payments and Earnings
Update your live skill instantly
If you want to update your slot values for a defined slot type or if you want to update your sample utterances in an existing intent, you can update your live skill instantly.
To make live updates to an existing skill
- Open the developer console.
- Navigate to your skills.
- Click Edit next to the development version of skill you want to update.
Note: Once a skill is published to users, it is considered live. You cannot edit the configuration for a live skill. Instead, you can edit the development version. This version is displayed on the list of skills below the live version. See Revise and Update Your Skill after Publication.
- Update the slot values and utterances.
- Build the skill.
Note: Make sure you do not change example phrases when you update slot values or sample utterances.
Ways to Update Live Skill
The automated certification workflow lets you quickly update your skill’s slot values for existing slot types and sample utterances for existing intents within minutes. The update skill button will be enabled on the developer upon a successful build only if a skill changes are made to slot values and/or sample utterances.
Add or update slot values to an existing slot type
If you have a skill that has constantly changing slot values like list of movie names in a movie booking skill, list of ingredients in a recipe skill, list of answers in a question and answers skill or you simply want to update your slot values, use update live skill to keep your skill’s content fresh and new for your customers.

Add or update sample utterances to existing intent
If you notice missing sample utterances to your skill, use update live skill to add sample utterances to improve the accuracy of skill models within minutes.


Where can I find…
If you are familiar with the previous version of the console, use the following guide to find the same features in the developer console.
Skill information page
Setting in the Old Console | Equivalent Option in the New Console |
---|---|
Skill type (such as Custom, Smart Home, or Flash Briefing) |
Skill types are now called interaction models. You select the model when creating the skill. |
Skill language tabs |
The sidebar displays a language drop-down list at the top. Select a language to switch to a different language. Select Language settings to configure additional languages. |
Name |
This is now the Public Name field on the Distribution page. |
Invocation Name |
Build > Custom > Interaction Model > Invocation |
Payload Version (Smart Home) |
Build > Smart Home > Payload version |
Audio Player, Video App, and Render Template settings. |
Build > Custom > Interfaces |
Skills Beta Testing |
Distribution > Availability. Expand the Beta Test section to see options for starting or managing a beta test. For more about beta testing, see Skills Beta Testing for Alexa Skills. |
Interaction model page
Setting in the Old Console | Equivalent Option in the New Console |
---|---|
All the fields for defining the interaction model manually:
|
Sections within Build > Custom > Interaction Model:
|
Access to the skill builder |
Sections within Build > Custom > Interaction Model:
|
Link to supported utterances (Smart Home, Flash Briefing, Video) |
On the page for selecting the interaction model, click the View example utterances button for the model. |
Configuration page
Setting in the Old Console | Equivalent Option in the New Console |
---|---|
Endpoint fields:
|
|
Custom Error Message (Flash Briefing) |
Build > Flash Briefing |
Feed Information / Add new feed (Flash Briefing) |
Build > Flash Briefing |
Account Linking |
Build > Account Linking |
Permissions |
Build > Permissions |
Privacy Policy URL |
Distribution > Skill Preview > Language > Privacy Policy URL |
SSL certificate
This page applies to custom skills configured to use an HTTPS endpoint. These settings are now available on the Endpoint section of the Build page.
Setting in the Old Console | Equivalent Option in the New Console |
---|---|
Certificate for <region> Endpoint |
Build > Custom > Endpoint. Under the text box for each region endpoint, select the SSL certificate type from the drop-down list. This list contains three options:
The self-signed certificate can be used only for testing. |
Test page
Setting in the Old Console | Equivalent Option in the New Console |
---|---|
Enable switch or Show this skill in the Alexa app switch |
Test > Test is enabled for this skill |
Go to Test Simulator Beta |
The new Test page replaces the previous Test Simulator. The new page has all the same functionality as the Test Simulator. |
Voice Simulator |
Test > Voice & Tone |
Service Simulator |
The Test page replaces the old simulator features:
|
Publishing information page
The Skill Preview option on the Distribution page has a section for each language you have added to the skill. For example, the fields for the US English version are in Launch > Skill Preview > English (US).
Setting in the Old Console | Equivalent Option in the New Console |
---|---|
Category |
Distribution > Skill Preview > Language > Category |
Testing Instructions |
Distribution > Privacy & Compliance > Testing Instructions |
Countries and Region |
Distribution > Availability > Where would you like this skill to be available? |
Short Skill Description |
Distribution > Skill Preview > Language > One Sentence Description |
Full Skill Description |
Distribution > Skill Preview > Language > Detailed Description |
Example Phrases |
Distribution > Skill Preview > Language > Example Phrases |
Keywords |
Distribution > Skill Preview > Language > Keywords |
Images |
|
Privacy and compliance page
Setting in the Old Console | Equivalent Option in the New Console |
---|---|
Does this skill allow users to make purchases or spend real money? |
Distribution > Privacy & Compliance > Does this skill allow users to make purchases or spend real money? |
Does this Alexa skill collect users' personal information? |
Distribution > Privacy & Compliance > Does this Alexa skill collect users' personal information? |
Is this skill directed to or does it target children under the age of 13? |
Distribution > Privacy & Compliance > Is this skill directed to or does it target children under the age of 13? |
Export Compliance |
Distribution > Privacy & Compliance > Export Compliance |
Does this skill contain advertising? |
Distribution> Privacy & Compliance > Export Compliance |
Privacy Policy URL |
Distribution > Skill Preview > Language > Privacy Policy URL |
Terms of Use URL |
Distribution > Skill Preview > Language > Terms of Use URL |
Metrics
You can view metrics for your skills on the Analytics page of the developer console. For more information, see View Skill Metrics.