Jovo Model: Alexa

Learn how to turn the Jovo Model into an Alexa Interaction Model.

• Introduction
• Alexa-specific Elements in the Jovo Model
  • Invocation
  • Built-in Slot Types
  • Alexa-only Elements
• Using the Alexa Jovo Model with the Jovo CLI
• Using the Alexa Jovo Model npm Package

Introduction

Language models for Amazon Alexa Skills are called Alexa Interaction Models. You can either manage them via API (what the Jovo CLI is doing during deployment) or in the Amazon Developer Portal, which offers a graphical user interface.

Alexa Interaction Models include:

• Invocation name
• Intents with samples (phrases in the Jovo Model) and slots (entities)
• Slot types (entity types)

Learn more about the structure in the official Alexa documentation. The Jovo Model can be translated into this structure by using the jovo build command (see below) or the npm package (see below).

Alexa-specific Elements in the Jovo Model

This section provides an overview how the Jovo Model (see general structure in the main Jovo Model docs) can be extended with platform-specific content for Alexa.

Invocation

You can define an Alexa-specific invocation name like this:

"invocation": {
    "alexa": "my test skill"
    // ...
},

Built-in Slot Types

Find all built-in slot types in the official Alexa Slot Type Reference.

If your intent uses an input (see how they are added to the Jovo Model) that requires an Alexa built-in slot type, you can add it like this:

"entities": {
  "name": {
    "type": {
        "alexa": "AMAZON.US_FIRST_NAME"
        // ...
    }
  }
}

Alexa-only Elements

Some elements (intents, slot types) might be required only by the Alexa portion of your Jovo project. For this you can add an alexa object to your Jovo Model.

"alexa": {
    "interactionModel": {
        "languageModel": {
            "intents": [
                {
                    "name": "AMAZON.CancelIntent",
                    "samples": []
                },
                {
                    "name": "AMAZON.HelpIntent",
                    "samples": []
                },
                {
                    "name": "AMAZON.StopIntent",
                    "samples": []
                }
            ]
        }
    }
},

This object follows the structure of the Alexa Interaction Model JSON, notice the difference of samples instead of phrases, for example.

Using the Alexa Jovo Model with the Jovo CLI

By using the jovo build command, you can turn your Jovo Model files in the models folder in your Jovo project into Alexa specific files. You can find the files inside the build folder that is created by the Jovo CLI. It contains all the information of your Alexa Skill needed to deploy the skill to the Amazon Developer Portal.

Using the Alexa Jovo Model npm Package

Install the package like this:

$ npm install @jovotech/model-alexa

You can learn more about all the Jovo Model features here: Using the Jovo Model npm Packages.