Create Your Own Alexa Skill (no code required)
I’m a big fan of Amazon Echo, at the most recent count I have three devices in my apartment and have gifted two others to friends. The personal assistant market and technology around intelligent voice recognition are maturing at breakneck speeds, and there has never been a better time to learn more about it.
I took my first swing at creating a skill earlier this year and the learning curve, even for a programmer, was steeper than anticipated. The documentation provided by Amazon leaves something to be desired, and there is so much of it it’s often like looking for a needle in a haystack when hunting for a specific answer. And that’s just for technical people who already have a clue. If you’re not a programmer, there hasn’t been a way for you to create custom skills of your own. That is, until now.
Amazon launched a new site this week called Alexa Skills Blueprints. The idea is simple: allow people to create their own Alexa skills quickly and easily. Roughly translated that means to leave the code at home.
The site offers 21 fill-in-the-blank templates across four categories to get you started. Options range from custom Q&A and quiz skills to flashcard and babysitter instruction skills. Most blueprints run you through 3–5 steps where you fill in the blanks and when done your new skill is available on any of your Alexa devices logged in to the same Amazon Alexa account you used to create it.
For the programmers among us, this isn’t a tool for you. You can’t drop in API calls or JSON URLs and expect Alexa to take it from there. But if you’re a tech enthusiast looking to add some custom personal skills to your Echo, then Alexa Skill Blueprints are a great place to start!
