Alexa without Alexa NLU

Question

It is possible to use Alexa skill with custom NLU without using Alexa ones? I needed it because Alexa doesn't provide context, which is crucial for my business needs. For example, I can be satisfied if I will be able to get user input from the skill.

Answer 1

I don't know what you exacty mean with "User Input".

If you want to have

• the audio what the user is speaking - No it's not possible
• the complete text what the user was speaking (speech to text) - Yes this is possible. Use a Custom Slot Type with some variances.

What do you mean with "doesn't provide context" exactly? If you know the user already in your system you could use "account linking".

Answer 2

It is up to the developer to provide context. Check out the AttributesManager in the SDK.

https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/alexa-skills-kit-sdk-for-nodejs/manage-attributes.html

You can set session or persistent attributes to "remember" the context. For example, I use session attributes and set a variable called "last_asked" to store which Yes or No question they were last asked, so the skill has the context of those generic answers.