CODEWITHSUNDEEP
alexa-skills-kit
pythonimus
pythonimus

Reputation: 293

Invoke Alexa Skill without using specific skill name

Some skills in the Alexa Skill Store get activated using only a sentence like "Ok Alexa, tell me a joke" or "Ok Alexa, can you copy me" without using the standard invocation like "Ok Alexa, tell [skill] [something]".

How can I use such short sentences with my skill?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 5560

Answers (4)

Ramesh
Ramesh

Reputation: 13266

As of this wirting, Amazon now supports this functionality. It is implemented by providing a CanFulFillIntent.

Referece :https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/understand-name-free-interaction-for-custom-skills.html

Upvotes: 4

Ron Lisle
Ron Lisle

Reputation: 1164

Tom's and Vijayanath's answers are correct. Here's an additional idea. There is a trick that I've used that works in some circumstances to allow the appearance of more natural sounding interactions with Alexa, seemingly without an invocation phrase.

Last Halloween I used a couple Dots in my costume. These were battery powered, each with a different skill running on a different account, but responding to the same invocation phrase. I wrote these to respond to my questions about other folks costumes, etc. This was sort of a "good-Alexa", "bad-Alexa" thing, like the scene in Animal House where an angel and a devil were sitting on the guy's shoulders.

I didn't want to have to say something like "Alexa, ask My Costume what it thinks of Fred's costume". Instead, I used the invocation phrase "me what". This allowed me to say "Alexa, tell me what you think of Fred's costume".

This is of course just a trick, since you then have to say (exactly) Alexa, tell me what ... or Alexa, ask me what ... but can be quite effective in some circumstances.

I hope this helps in your circumstance also.

Upvotes: 5

Vijayanath Viswanathan
Vijayanath Viswanathan

Reputation: 8571

Alexa skill development is open to anybody and as you know they have a skill store. So anybody can create an Alexa skill put it in skill store after Amazon certification process. So it definitely needs a unique way to identify skill from one another and that unique way is using skill name. It means Alexa can understand which remedy you are trying to invoke only by skill name but which is applicable to skills not owned by Amazon.

So long story short only skills you can invoke without mentioning skills names are those skills owned and managed by Amazon.

Upvotes: 0

Tom
Tom

Reputation: 17892

Those are built-in capabilities, not 3rd party skills. There is no way to do that for 3rd party skills.

I think maybe Google Assistant is experimenting with automatically selecting 3rd party skills based on generic queries, but even then you wouldn't have any control over it.

Yes, it is awkward for the user to have to repeat your invocation name to use your skills, but is does provide clarity and namespacing.

Upvotes: 6

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