Alexa Invoked Serverless Function

Invoke your serverless function through an invocation through Alexa.
This is for one time calls to hit the function without any Alexa state machine

Installation

# Install serverless globally
npm i -g serverless
# Create new serverless project - walkthrough nodejs or python
sls
# Change directory to project
cd <project_name>
# Install serverless alexa skill plugin
sls plugin install -n serverless-alexa-skills

Setup

Replace your handler.py with the following code:

def hello(event, context):
    response = {
        'version': '1.0',
        'response': {
            'outputSpeech': {
                'type': 'PlainText',
                'text': 'Hello World!'
            }
        }
    }

    return response

Login to Amazon Developer Console

Click on Create a New Security Profile

Enter anything for Security Profile Name and Security Profile Description

Click on Web Settings tab and click the Edit button

Input http://127.0.0.1:9090/cb for Allowed Return URLs. Then click Save. Use 127.0.0.1 not localhost

Take note of your Client ID, Client Secret and your Vendor ID located here

Append the following to the end of your serverless.yml file

custom:
  alexa:
    vendorId: <YOUR_VENDOR_ID>
    clientId: <YOUR_AMAZON_CLIENT_ID>
    clientSecret: <YOUR_AMAZON_CLIENT_SECRET>

Then, run the following command:

sls alexa auth

The command opens a login page. You'll be redirected after authenticating and if successful, you'll see the message: Thank you for using Serverless Alexa Skills Plugin!!

Run this command to create a new Alexa skill

# $YOUR_SKILL_LOCALE -> en-US
# $YOUR_SKILL_TYPE -> custom

sls alexa create --name $YOUR_SKILL_NAME --locale $YOUR_SKILL_LOCALE --type $YOUR_SKILL_TYPE

Take note of the Skill ID then make the following changes to the handler function in serverless.yml

functions:
  hello:
    handler: handler.hello
    events:
      - alexaSkill: <YOUR_AMAZON_ALEXA_SKILL_ID>

Deploy your function

sls deploy -v

Take note of your lambda function arn from the stack output of this command. arn:aws:lambda:<locale>:<amazon_id>:function:<function_name> Remove anything after the function name, ex. :1

Go to the Alexa console here

Click Edit on the Alexa skill you made

Click Choose

Go to Endpoints tab and input your lambda function arn into Default Region. Afterwards, click Save Endpoints

Go to JSON Editor and paste in the following. Change the invocationName to whatever you want the name you call to invoke the skill. Click Save Model and Build Model

{
    "interactionModel": {
        "languageModel": {
            "invocationName": "serverless invoke",
            "intents": [
                {
                    "name": "AMAZON.FallbackIntent",
                    "samples": []
                },
                {
                    "name": "AMAZON.CancelIntent",
                    "samples": []
                },
                {
                    "name": "AMAZON.HelpIntent",
                    "samples": []
                },
                {
                    "name": "AMAZON.StopIntent",
                    "samples": []
                },
                {
                    "name": "AMAZON.NavigateHomeIntent",
                    "samples": []
                },
                {
                    "name": "StartIntent",
                    "slots": [],
                    "samples": [
                        "anything"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "types": []
        }
    }
}

Lastly, go to the Test tab. Select Development on the dropdown for Skill testing is enabled in. Finally, type into the text field open <invocationName>

References

https://github.com/marcy-terui/serverless-alexa-skills
https://medium.com/@rupakg/how-to-build-a-serverless-alexa-skill-51d8479e0432
https://serverless.com/blog/how-to-manage-your-alexa-skills-with-serverless/
https://forums.developer.amazon.com/questions/94166/alexa-skill-cant-work-after-changed-the-invocation.html
https://github.com/serverless/examples/tree/master/aws-python-alexa-skill https://blog.alexellis.io/serverless-alexa-skill-mobymingle/ https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/host-a-custom-skill-as-an-aws-lambda-function.html

Afterwards

I went with using the Alexa GUI because sls alexa build gave me the following error: StatusCodeError: 429 - "{\"message\":\"We are experiencing heavy traffic at the moment. Please try again later.\"}"

You can probably skip all of this and just make a new skill just by selecting Alexa-hosted Python