Gain insights into developing voice apps with Alexa Skills Kit. Delve into real projects, learn fundamentals, and discover how to launch apps on the Alexa skill store.

ask.tar.gz

Voice is the next big revolution in tech. As conversational AI finds new and interesting use cases, it's time for developers to make use of the new opportunities to re-use their existing skills to build the next generation of apps powered by voice. 

This course will help you learn how to start developing apps for Alexa using the Alexa Skills Kit. You will be building real and interesting projects that will help you understand the fundamentals. Along the way, you will learn all the skills you need to launch your own apps on the Alexa skill store and reach millions of customers around the world. "Hey Alexa, shall we begin?"

Alexa Skills 101: Building voice apps for Alexa

In this lesson, we will get started with coding Hero Trivia step by step. 

Try following the instructions and completing the code as instructed within the code section provided. You will receive feedback on any mistakes you might make at each step.

Once we are done coding and verifying that all tests pass, paste the code back into the “Code” section in the Alexa developer console and test things out.


# Understanding the SDK

This is the structure that we will see throughout the back-end code:



const handler = {
    canHandle(handlerInput) {
        // Returns true if the handler can service the request
    },
    handle(handlerInput) {
        // Code to handle the request
    }
}

First, we have what’s called a **request handler**. A custom Skill needs to respond to events sent by the Alexa voice service. For example, our back-end service receives a launch request or an intent request, it does something, and then sends a response. The code needs to handle these requests with different handlers.
With the ASK SDK, we simply need to write a request handler.


The code needs to handle these requests via different handlers.

With the **ASK SDK**, you simply need to write a **Request Handler.** 

> A request handler is simply code which handles incoming requests and returns a response.

Each request handler has two methods: `canHandle()` and `handle()`.

## canHandle

If you are from a web development background, you may have heard of routing. It’s a similar concept at play here.

Request routing is all based on the conditions set inside the `canHandle` function.


```
canHandle(handlerInput) {
        // Returns true if the handler can service the request
}
```
This function is required in every intent handler and must return `true` for each event that the handler can process. This lets us write a single handler for multiple intents.

## handle

The second required function for each intent handler is `handle`. The contents of this function are less regimented, so it is up to us to define what logic to run.

```
 handle(handlerInput) {
        // Code to handle the request
}
```
This is where we would send our responses, call our APIs, or save information to the database.

Let’s now create our own custom intent handlers and the back-end logic for our Skill Hero Trivia.





We will code the intent handler for the LaunchRequestIntent.

Hello Alexa: An Introduction to the World of Voice

Setting You Up For Success

Your First Skill

Advanced Concepts

Building a Game: Voice Clues

Voice Clues: Coding with ASK CLI

Next Steps

Hero Trivia: Coding LaunchRequestHandler

Understanding the SDK