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https://github.com/erik/alexandra

Python toolkit for writing Amazon Echo skills as web services
https://github.com/erik/alexandra

amazon-alexa-skill amazon-echo libraries python

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Python toolkit for writing Amazon Echo skills as web services

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alexandra

=========



|Build Status|



Minimal Python library to remove the tedious boilerplate-y parts of

writing Alexa skills. Alexandra is tested against Python 2.7 and 3.6.



Alexandra can be used as part of an AWS lambda function or a self-hosted

server. There's a builtin WSGI app if you're in to that kind of thing.



Check out `the api documentation `__ for

more details on what alexandra can do.



.. code:: python



    import alexandra



    app = alexandra.Application()

    name_map = {}



    @app.launch

    def launch_handler():

        return alexandra.reprompt('What would you like to do?')



    @app.intent('MyNameIs')

    def set_name_intent(slots, session):

        name = slots['Name']

        name_map[session.user_id] = name



        return alexandra.respond("Okay, I won't forget you, %s" % name)



    @app.intent('WhoAmI')

    def get_name_intent(slots, session):

        name = name_map.get(session.user_id)



        if name:

            return alexandra.respond('You are %s, of course!' % name)



        return alexandra.reprompt("We haven't met yet! What's your name?")



    if __name__ == '__main__':

        app.run('0.0.0.0', 8080, debug=True)



installing

----------



Alexandra uses ``pyOpenSSL``, which requires the ``libffi`` library to

compile. Make sure that's installed first.



If you're on OS X, check out `the special

instructions `__

for installing the OpenSSL library if you get errors during installation.



And then:



``pip install alexandra``



using alexandra with aws lambda

-------------------------------



Getting an alexandra app running on lambda is much easier than running

your own server, and is probably the right choice unless you need to

access the local network or have some other complication that prevents

you from using the service.



Here's an example:



.. code:: python



    app = alexandra.Application()



    @app.intent('FooBar')

    def foo_bar():

        ...



    # Entry point to our lambda function.

    def lambda_handler(event, context):

        return alexa.dispatch_request(event)



running with uwsgi

------------------



The ``alexandra.Application`` class has a ``run`` method, which is

useful enough for testing purposes and simple projects, but for real

deployments, you'll probably want to use something a little more robust,

such as uWSGI.



Alexandra works with uwsgi in almost exactly the same way Flask does.



.. code:: python



    # skill_module.py



    app = alexandra.Application()

    wsgi_app = app.create_wsgi_app()



    @app.intent('FooBar')

    def foobar():

        ...



The above can be run with uwsgi as

``uwsgi -w skill_module:wsgi_app --http 0.0.0.0:5678``



setting up a web server

-----------------------



Amazon requires a real SSL certificate for skills to be rolled out to

other users, but fortunately for testing and personal projects

self-signed certificates are acceptable.



To make it a bit easier to generate a self signed SSL certificate and

nginx configuration, here's a Python 2.7/3.5.1 compatible

`standalone script `_ to

generate basic config for a standard unix setup.



After running the script, simply add a ``location`` block to the nginx

config for any new Alexa skills being hosted on the same box.



For example, if there's an alexandra skill running on port 6789, you

would add:



::



    location /some_random_endpoint {

        proxy_pass http://localhost:6789;

    }



.. |Build Status| image:: https://travis-ci.org/erik/alexandra.svg?branch=master

   :target: https://travis-ci.org/erik/alexandra