Before you write the alexa programming code, you should be aware of the various types of utterances that the assistant understands. It is not enough to map each utterance to a particular intent, it also needs to preempt other utterances so that it doesn’t overlap with other ones. For example, you can use the speak() method to ask Alexa to speak a sentence. However, if you want to provide a humorous response, you must also use the ‘joke’ intent.
After coding the Alexa programming code, you need to test it in your device. To do so, you can use a simulator. To do so, choose the option “Development” from the drop-down menu. The simulator allows you to type sentences and process speech to text to test the response of the skill. If you don’t want to use the simulator, you can also make use of a simulator.
Another way to test your Alexa skills is to run them with a small number of commands and see how long it takes them to respond. Alexa skills are supposed to respond to requests within two seconds, but the majority of them aren’t. So, you should make sure that your backend is fast enough to handle the flood of requests that may come through your Alexa skill. High-performance backends are the best way to guarantee high availability even during the busiest times of the day.
As you can see, there are a lot of possibilities for software engineers. Besides the capabilities that the Echo can perform, it has also a rich library of skills that you can develop. You can even deploy your own Alexa skills using this code. You should take advantage of this opportunity to learn more about the technology. This tutorial is just a starting point, so feel free to expand your ideas. The aim is to make your Alexa skills more useful to you.
