alexa-samples/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game

An Alexa Skill Sample showing how to build a quiz game skill.

Build An Alexa Quiz Game Skill 🇺🇸

This Alexa sample skill is a template for a basic quiz game skill. Provided a list of interesting facts about a topic, Alexa will quiz a user with facts from the list.

You can see an example of this skill in action - just enable the United States Quiz from the Alexa app.

Skill Architecture

Each skill consists of two basic parts, a front end and a back end. The front end is the voice interface, or VUI. The voice interface is configured through the voice interaction model. The back end is where the logic of your skill resides.

Three Options for Skill Setup

There are a number of different ways for you to setup your skill, depending on your experience and what tools you have available.

• If this is your first skill, choose the Alexa-Hosted backend instructions to get started quickly.
• If you want to manage the backend resources in your own AWS account, you can follow the AWS-Hosted instructions.
• Developers with the ASK Command Line Interface configured may follow the ASK CLI instructions.

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Additional Resources

Community

• Amazon Developer Forums - Join the conversation!
• Hackster.io - See what others are building with Alexa.

Tutorials & Guides

• Voice Design Guide - A great resource for learning conversational and voice user interface design.
• Codecademy: Learn Alexa - Learn how to build an Alexa Skill from within your browser with this beginner friendly tutorial on Codecademy!
• Situation Design for Quiz Skill - step through the design of the quiz skill, and how it handles different situations. Apply it to your skill too! Also available in PDF.

Documentation

• Alexa Skills Kit SDK for Node.js
• Alexa Skills Kit Documentation

skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game's Issues

"Lambda" page, step 6

Please indicate that triggers are on a separate tab, and once there, you must click "add trigger".

Purpose of formatCasing?

What does formatCasing exactly do? Does the regex split on non letter characters and replaces it with a space?

Could you provide a docblock for the helper functions?

function formatCasing(key)
{
    key = key.split(/(?=[A-Z])/).join(" ");
    return key;
}

See: https://github.com/alexa/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game/blob/bfbcbfe092fa2ff10f5bdcd8eeff66902ac1a027/lambda/custom/index.js#L400

the quiz does not give me a response on my skill

My Alexa skill quiz does not respond after I answer a question from it, it just ask again and then turns off.

Pasted interaction model and got this alert

"Apply changes
Your model used a deprecated format. We updated it to match our new schema."

Total Mismatch between Voice and Quiz. Shameful that this is the Beginner Skill Developers at ASK

For a beginner , this is an AWEFUL experience
The tutorial doesnt work
The quiz and Voice commands (Slots) dont match
It is extremely confusing and should be remove immediately

InvalidModelDefinitionSchema when trying to use interaction model (step 1)

The interaction model from Step 1, "Voice User Interface", is giving me problems when I try to save or build it:

"Save Failed

The interaction model is invalid. Error code: InvalidModelDefinitionSchema"

This is using: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alexa/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game/master/InteractionModel.json

Sorry if this is a basic question, but I'm pulling my hair out on this one.

"ask deploy" source directory is invalid

When attempting to deploy this skill, most of the deployment completes as expected:

ask deploy
-------------------- Update Skill Project --------------------
Skill Id: amzn1.ask.skill.e04ea7be-cc76-4606-9592-a6927b78c72e
Skill deployment finished.
Model deployment finished.
Source directory is invalid, cannot install node_module for the lambda function(s)

That final one is causing issues. On my local machine, in skill.json there is line 46:

"sourceDir": "lambda/src"

changing this to:

"sourceDir": "lambda"

now effectively succeeds in deployment.

ask deploy
-------------------- Update Skill Project --------------------
Skill Id: amzn1.ask.skill.e04ea7be-cc76-4606-9592-a6927b78c72e
Skill deployment finished.
Model deployment finished.
Lambda deployment finished.

all wrong answers

Dear Team,
First of all, thank you for the tutorial and the detailed step to use the code as is:
the issue, I encountered is that, even I tell the correct answer, it says "that answer is wrong" but gives the same answer as correct answer. I don't know, how to modify the code.
can you please help.
with regards
Riphath Athyala

Lambda Function code link 404

The link to provided code at the bottom of page 2 needs updating. I believe the correct link is https://github.com/alexa/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game/blob/master/lambda/custom/index.js

Getting error while deploying

I am getting error
The source directory is invalid, cannot install noe_module for the lambda function.

Mismatch in instructions between VUI step and Lambda step

The instructions in this repo tell the user to create a quiz game (for example, for US states by using https://github.com/alexa/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game/blob/master/models/en-US.json) but in the Lambda step, the user is told to use a Serverless Application Repository (alexa-skills-kit-nodejs-factskill) that instead provides facts about planets. I thought the intention was to replicate the "United States Quiz" as it says here: https://github.com/alexa/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game .

Instruction's 'Interaction Model' link is invalid

In the instruction's 1-voice-user-interface.md,
Step 1 (Voice User Interface) tab > step 7.ii > 'Interaction Model' link is invalid

I presume the link would point to the code in InteractionModel.js.

404 link

On https://github.com/alexa/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game/blob/master/step-by-step/1-voice-user-interface.md, if you click on US_STATE_ABBR it takes you to https://github.com/alexa/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game/blob/master/speech-assets/US_STATE_ABBR_slotvalues.txt which 404s

Image

Hey!! Can anyone help me with adding images in my Alexa skill responses. I am quiet confused with adding images to my skill

Thanks in advance

Missing the Skill Template choice

Now when you start building a skill you have a "Template" option. That is missing from these instructions.

Few warnings

Hello all,

In index.js

Line 54 return "The " + formatCasing(property) + " of " + item.StateName + " is <say-as interpret-as='spell-out'>" + item[property] + "</say-as>. "
and
Line 57 return "The " + formatCasing(property) + " of " + item.StateName + " is " + item[property] + ". "
are missing a semicolon at the end.

Also since return is being performed on 54 and 57, 55 and 58's break is unreachable I believe.

Line 294 let property = this.attributes["quizproperty"] is also missing a semicolon at the end.

Line 176 const counter = 0;
Line 374 'function getRandomSymbolSpeech(symbol)'
Line 404 let speechCon = "";
These all three are defined but never used within the js.
Is this intended?

Two of the mentioned Setup Files are missing

In the README.md

there are three possibilities mentioned to setup an alexa skill. The second two are missing in the code:

(./instructions/setup-vui-aws-hosted.md).
(./instructions/cli.md).

how can I rename the lambda function when I am deploying it. Thank you in advance for your help.

Deaddead link https://github.com/alexa/alexa-cookbook/tree/master/testing/postman/README.md

Unit Testing with Alexa (https://github.com/alexa/alexa-cookbook/tree/master/testing/postman/README.md points to 404 on the page https://github.com/alexa/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game/blob/master/instructions/test-using-simulator.md

Sample Interaction model has issues

Dear Alexa team,
When I am following sample quiz game; I am getting this error while saving the interaction model taken from https://github.com/alexa/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game/blob/master/instructions/1-voice-user-interface.md

Once I removed text "AMAZON." from the error code; I got this error:

Kindly help me to resolve this.

"The remote endpoint could not be called, or the response it returned was invalid,"

Hi, I'm having trouble with this error. I've looked on github, stackoverflow, and other cites and can't figure it out. I ran an execution test and it came back successful, but whenever I try to test it in the developer portal I continue to get the "The remote endpoint could not be called, or the response it returned was invalid," error. Could someone please advise me to what I should do to fix it? Thank you in advance!

There was a problem with the requested skill's response

I am trying to complete this example. I can't get past the first audio statement using the simulator. It seems to be hanging before the reprompt, since I hear "Welcome to the United States Quiz Game!... " portion.

No matter what I submit, I can't get past this point.

{
"body": {
"version": "1.0",
"response": {
"outputSpeech": {
"type": "SSML",
"ssml": " Welcome to the United States Quiz Game! You can ask me about any of the fifty states and their capitals, or you can ask me to start a quiz. What would you like to do? "
},
"reprompt": {
"outputSpeech": {
"type": "SSML",
"ssml": " I know lots of things about the United States. You can ask me about a state or a capital, and I'll tell you what I know. You can also test your knowledge by asking me to start a quiz. What would you like to do? "
}
},
"shouldEndSession": false
},
"sessionAttributes": {
"STATE": "_START"
},
"userAgent": "ask-nodejs/1.0.25 Node/v6.10.3"
}
}

The "Voice User Interface" doesn't include all "Global Fields" in step 5

OLD | No changes what soever

Please update this repo

How to use the i18next t() function outside of handler functions?

If I want to use the i18next t() function outside of a handler in one of the helper functions what is the best way to achieve that?

e.g:
I register language strings in the alexa object like so:

exports.handler = (event, context) => {
  const alexa = Alexa.handler(event, context);
  alexa.appId = APP_ID;

  alexa.resources = languageStrings; // Add some language strings here.

  alexa.registerHandlers(handlers, startHandlers, quizHandlers);
  alexa.execute();
};

But in getSpeachDescription I have no access to this.t(). What is the recommended way to use the language strings there?
see:
https://github.com/alexa/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game/blob/bfbcbfe092fa2ff10f5bdcd8eeff66902ac1a027/lambda/custom/index.js#L14

• Init my own i18next object with the same resources?
• Use a .call statement like getSpeachDescription.call(this);
• Use the alexa object inside the helper function?
• Other / better method?

broken link - readme

from the readme file - https://github.com/alexa-samples/skill-sample-nodejs-quiz-game/blob/master/instructions/setup-vui-aws-hosted.md

seems to be broken