So I finally decided to stop fighting it…  Building Alexa Skills in C# is just difficult.  With the newly released Visual Studio Code plugin for Alexa ( ) the language of choice is JavaScript.  Ugh.  But, it turns out that Google is still my friend (even though the Google Home is a horrible platform for voice skill development).  A quick search turned up all sorts of free JavaScript training.  A few hours of interaction later and I’m a pro beginning to be barely capable in JavaScript.  So, what’s a Microsoft Developer to do to code an Alexa Skill?

Getting the Tools

Step 1 – From the command line (Start | cmd in Windows), run npm to install the ASK CLI:

npm install -g ask-cli

This command takes 2-5 minutes to run and doesn’t appear to be doing anything while it’s running.

TIP:  It’s a good idea to run that npm command every month or so to get the latest version of the ASK-CLI.  It is updated quite frequently.

Step 2 – Install Git, if you haven’t already.

Step 2 – Install Visual Studio Code if you haven’t already.  (I recommend the 64-bit User version for Windows developers.)

Step 3 – In VS Code, select the Help | Welcome menu.  On the right-hand side, under Customize, under Tools and languages, install support for JavaScript.

Step 4 – In VS Code, select the View | Extensions menu.  Search for Alexa Skills Kit (currently – 09/15/18 – in beta).  Install it.

I think that’s all I had to do to get the tools.

Configuring for Alexa Skill Development

AWS Lambda Credentials

Since we will be using an AWS Lambda function as the back-end for our skill, we need to set up the credentials in AWS IAM.

Add a User.  Give the user a name.  Select Programmatic access.  Click Next.

For this example, I’m going to Attach existing policies directly and select Administrator Access, but this is NOT best practice.  (I should create a user group that has the specific policies this account needs, but that’s a different blog entry.)  Click Next.

Click Create User.

Download the .csv.  Do this.

IMPORTANT:  This is the ONLY time you can Download the .csv, so do it now.

Click Close.

Initialize ASK CLI

In VS Code, view the Command Palette (Ctrl-Shift-P) or select the View | Command Palette menu.  Enter:  ASK in the palette and choose the “ASK: Initialize / Configure the ASK CLI” option.

Accept the default profile name.  Sign in to Amazon in the browser provided USING THE ACCOUNT YOU JUST CREATED ABOVE.  It should say “Profile [default] initialized successfully.”

If not, go here for assistance.

Starting the Alexa Skill

Create a folder for Alexa Skills.

View the Command Palette (Ctrl-Shift-P) or select the View | Command Palette menu.

Enter:  ASK in the palette and choose the “ASK: Create a basic skill package” option.

It should come back with an option to select your AWS profile.  Choose the profile you created above.  This profile needs to be linked to an IAM user who has the right to publish Lambda functions.  (Which is why I cheated above and gave it AdministratorAccess.)

Now it will ask you to enter a skill name.  I’ll be calling mine “OMWTM Roll A Dice”.

 

ASK will then create and run a command in the Terminal window at the bottom right of VS Code:

Once it’s finished, VS Code will open a folder with your basic skill defined:

In the next blog entry, we’ll go through the basic skill definition and customize it.

Bye for now.