Practical Hands-on Guide for Alexa Skill Development (2022)

Rapidly build & deploy Virtual Personal Assistants using Alexa Custom Skills; Master Conversational/Voice User Interface

Created by: Vivek Kapoor
Technology Evangelist and System Integrator

What Will I Learn?

• Build Alexa Custom Skills to augment Amazon Echo's Strengths, with superior understanding of the core fundamentals
• Deconstruct an Alexa Skill, and get clarity on what are Intents, Slots, and Utterances
• Use Nodejs 14.x and asynchronous requests with promises, await & async functions with Alexa Skills Kit SDK v2 (ask-sdk-core)
• Be more than just an Alexa Skill Developer - get the "Meta" understanding of how the pieces fit together - and be technology agnostic
• Create "visual" Voice Interaction Models for Advanced Voice User / Conversational Interfaces
• Try out Amazon Polly with SSML as well as Chatbots through Amazon Lex
• Introduce errors, and Test Alexa Skills through 3 different modes including Alexa Simulator, Alexa App & Amazon Echo Devices
• Setup Security through Amazon's IAM (Identity and Access Management)
• Program in Amazon Lambda (Serverless Computing)
• Use Amazon S3's Storage API
• Use Google Maps Directions API for getting Real-time Traffic Information
• Monitor performance and debug errors through Amazon CloudWatch

Requirements

• If you intend to develop a skill, then a basic understanding of Nodejs and JavaScript.
• It will be good to have an Amazon Echo device as it will help in faster testing. Otherwise you can use the web baesd Alexa Simulator.

Target audience

• Developers who would like to build and deploy Alexa Skills, and also get the "Meta" knowledge of how things work
• Project Managers who need to know the building blocks of a Voice User Interface as well as an Alexa Skill, and how things fit together
• Marketers who can leverage Voice User Interfaces to build superior experiences for their customers
• Power Users who are interested in extending their Amazon Echo's capabilities, based on one's specific needs.
• Curious Humans who would like to see Artificially Intelligent Systems that are shaping our world today
• Anyone who would like to get fundamental knowledge on building next generation Conversational / Voice User Interfaces
• Anyone who got inspired by J.A.R.V.I.S in Iron Man, and aspires to replicate it! 🙂