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https://github.com/sjmog/ralyxa

A Ruby framework for interacting with Amazon Alexa.
https://github.com/sjmog/ralyxa

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A Ruby framework for interacting with Amazon Alexa.

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# Ralyxa



[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/sjmog/ralyxa.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/sjmog/ralyxa)



A Ruby framework for interacting with Amazon Alexa. Designed to work with Sinatra, although can be used with a few other web frameworks.



An example application implementing the gem can be played with [here](https://github.com/sjmog/ralyxa_example).



## Installation



Add this line to your application's Gemfile:



```ruby

gem 'ralyxa'

```



And then execute:



    $ bundle



Or install it yourself as:



    $ gem install ralyxa



## Usage



### Getting Started



First, you've gotta pass the request from Sinatra to Ralyxa. Add a single `POST` route to your Sinatra application, with the following:



```ruby

require 'sinatra'

require 'ralyxa'



post '/' do

  Ralyxa::Skill.handle(request)

end

```



Second, you've gotta define your intents. To define a new intent, create a directory called 'intents'. Inside there, create a `.rb` file:



```ruby

intent "IntentName" do

  # Whatever logic you want to do

  # fetching something for the response

  # persisting something etc

  # this is plain Ruby, so go wild



  respond("This is what Alexa will say to the user")

end

```



Third, define your Intent and Utterance on the Alexa Developer portal. You can then test your application in the Service Simulator (either by pushing the Sinatra app somewhere with HTTPS or, more easily, using ngrok to tunnel the application).



### Being more pro



##### `ask` and `tell`



There are two kinds of responses you can send to Alexa: `ask`s and `tell`s. An `ask` should ask the user a question, and expect them to reply. A `tell` should end the conversation.



When defining intents, you can use the `#ask` and `#tell` methods in place of `#respond` to keep the session open, or close it:



```ruby

intent "AskMoreQuestions" do

  ask("What next?")

end

```



```ruby

intent "SayGoodbye" do

  tell("Goodbye.")

end

```



> A `tell` is basically a `#respond` with `end_session: true`. You can use that instead if you prefer.



##### Reading and setting session attributes



You can persist data to an Alexa session:



```ruby

intent "PersistThis" do

  ask("Got it. What now?", session_attributes: { persist: "this" })

end

```



And, subsequently, read it:



```ruby

intent "ReadFromSession" do

  persisted_data = request.session_attribute("persist")

  ask("You persisted: #{ persisted_data }")

end

```



##### Playing audio with the `AudioPlayer` directive



###### Play



You can play an audio stream right away with:



```ruby

intent "PlayAudio" do

  audio_player.play(

    'https://s3.amazonaws.com/my-ssml-samples/Flourish.mp3',

    'flourish-token',

    speech: 'Playing Audio'

  )

end

```



###### Play Later (Enqueue)



You can queue a song to play next with:



```ruby

intent "PlayAudioLater" do

  audio_player.play_later(

    'https://s3.amazonaws.com/my-ssml-samples/Flourish.mp3',

    'flourish-token'

  )

end

```



###### Stop



You can stop playing with:



```ruby

intent "StopAudio" do

  audio_player.stop

end

```



###### Clear Queued



You can clear enqueued audio with:



```ruby

intent "ClearQueue" do

  audio_player.clear_queue

end

```



##### Reading the session user



You can read the session user's `userId` and `accessToken`, and check that the `accessToken` exists:



```ruby

request.user_id #=> returns the `userId` value from the request session

request.user_access_token # => returns the `accessToken` value from the request session

request.user_access_token_exists? # => true if the user has an access token, false if not

```



> Go check out the `Alexa::Request` object to see what else you can do with the `request`.



##### Ending sessions



If, for some reason, you want to end a session in some other way than with a `tell`, you can:



```ruby

intent "ConfuseTheUser" do

  respond("This actually ends the session.", end_session: true)

end

```



##### Starting over



You can start conversations over, which clears the session attributes:



```ruby

intent "AMAZON.StartOverIntent" do

  ask("Starting over. What next?", start_over: true)

end

```



##### Using SSML



You can use [Speech Synthesis Markup Language](https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/speech-synthesis-markup-language-ssml-reference) to directly control Alexa's pronunciation:



```ruby

intent "SpellOut" do

  ask("Hello World", ssml: true)

end

```



##### Using Cards



You can send cards to the Alexa app. Ralyxa will automatically figure out if you're trying to send a 'Simple' or 'Standard' card type:



```ruby

# Simple card

intent "SendSimpleCard" do

  simple_card = card("Hello World", "I'm alive!")

  ask("What do you think of the Simple card I just sent?", card: simple_card)

end



# Standard card

intent "SendStandardCard" do

  standard_card = card("Hello World", "I'm alive!", "http://placehold.it/720x480", "http://placehold.it/1200x800")

  

  ask("What do you think of the Standard card I just sent?", card: standard_card)

end

```



> Card images must be under 2MB and available at an SSL-enabled (HTTPS) endpoint.



##### Account Linking



You can ask Alexa to send a [`LinkAccount`](https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/post/Tx3CX1ETRZZ2NPC/Alexa-Account-Linking-5-Steps-to-Seamlessly-Link-Your-Alexa-Skill-with-Login-wit) card for the user to authenticate via OAuth:



```ruby

intent "SendAccountLinkingCard" do

  tell("Please authorize via the Alexa app.", card: link_account_card)

end

```



After completing authentication, the user's access token is available via `request.user_access_token`. You can check for its existence with `request.user_access_token_exists?`.



If, for example, you wanted to require authorization for an intent called `SecretIntent`:



```ruby

intent "SecretIntent" do

  return tell("Please authorize via the Alexa app", card: link_account_card) unless request.user_access_token_exists?

  ask("Welcome to the secret zone. What's next?")

end

```



## Ephemera



> Alexa says there's a problem if I just fail to reply to a prompt!



This is probably because your application is not handling the `SessionEndedRequest` intent. That's a built-in intent that kicks in after the user says 'exit', or nothing at all, in response to an ask. You'll probably see a warning in your server logs. To resolve it, implement the following intent:



```ruby

intent "SessionEndedRequest" do

  respond

end

```



> You can't actually respond to a `SessionEndedRequest`, but you might want to do some tidying in this action.



### I want to serve card images, audio stream etc. over HTTP not HTTPS



In some special cases, you may be allowed to serve content over HTTP instead of HTTPS. To allow this within Ralyxa, you need to set the `require_secure_urls` configuration option to false.



> **NOTE:** In order to use HTTP sources, you must be given special approval directly from Amazon. If you use HTTP sources without getting advanced approval, your skill will not work correctly.



```ruby

Ralyxa.configure do |config|

  config.require_secure_urls = false

end

```



## Testing

Part of Amazon's requirements for Alexa skills is that they have to ensure requests are sent from Amazon. This is done in a number of ways documented [here](https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/host-a-custom-skill-as-a-web-service.html). This verification is built into Ralyxa and can cause issues when testing your skills with stubbed data.



### Disabling verification

Inside of your spec_helper files, include the following to disable verification:



#### RSpec

```ruby

require 'ralyxa'



RSpec.configure do |config|

  config.before :each do

    Ralyxa.configure do |config|

      config.validate_requests = false

    end

  end

end

```



## Development



After checking out the repo, run `bundle install` to install dependencies. Then, run `rspec` to run the tests. You can also run `irb` for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.



## Contributing



Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/sjmog/ralyxa. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the [Contributor Covenant](http://contributor-covenant.org) code of conduct.



The main areas of focus are:



- Reprompts :construction:

- Dialogue :construction:

- Generators of built-in Intents e.g. `SessionEndedRequest`

- Automation with the `AVS` command line tool



## License



The gem is available as open source under the terms of the [MIT License](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).