3

I am working on an Alexa skill where I would like to redirect user to one intent when he opens the skill via LaunchRequest.

  • User says Open xyz skill
  • LaunchRequest receives this and forwards the request to another intent.this.emit('AnotherIntent')
  • AnotherIntent has a SLOT which is required for its functioning.
  • I have setup the SLOT as required and AnotherIntent does work perfectly fine when invoked on its own.

However when I Launch the skill and tries to call AnotherIntent from within it as mentioned in Step 2 above, Alexa skill fails to launch.

One more thing to note is when I Test the same Alexa skill from within the skill builder for this scenario, the output json correctly shows me the SLOT being elicited. Not sure what is happening when I am trying to run it from Echo device.

I am using NodeJS and Lambda to deploy my Alexa handlers.

Any help would be appreciated.

Further reference based on the comment -

Handlers - 

var handlers = {
'LaunchRequest': function () {
    console.log("LaunchRequest::" + JSON.stringify(this.event.request));
    this.emit('fooIntent');
},
'SessionEndedRequest': function () {
    console.log('session ended!');
},
'fooIntent': function () {
    const intentObj = this.event.request.intent;
     if (!intentObj || (intentObj && !intentObj.slots.WHEN.value)) {
        console.log('fooIntent::UserId' + this.event.session.user.userId);
        const slotToElicit = 'WHEN';
        const speechOutput = 'Ask a question here ?';
        const repromptSpeech = speechOutput;
        console.log("emitting elict now");
        this.emit(':elicitSlot', slotToElicit, speechOutput, repromptSpeech);   
    } else {
        // SLOT is filled, let's query the database to get the value for the slot.
        console.log("fooIntent intent:something is requested for " + this.event.request.intent.slots.WHEN.value);
        // All the slots are filled (And confirmed if you choose to confirm slot/intent)
       fooIntentFunction(this,this.event.request.intent.slots.WHEN.value);
    }
 },
'AMAZON.HelpIntent': function () {
    var speechOutput = "Need to come up with one.";
    var reprompt = "What can I help you with?";
    this.emit(':ask', speechOutput, reprompt);
},
'AMAZON.CancelIntent': function () {
    this.emit(':tell', 'Goodbye!');
},
'AMAZON.StopIntent': function () {
    this.emit(':tell', 'Goodbye!');
}

};

JSON Request captured in LaunchRequest

{
"type": "LaunchRequest",
"requestId": "amzn1.echo-api.request.972bb705-d181-495e-bf60-991f2bd8fbb1",
"timestamp": "2017-12-30T21:35:21Z",
"locale": "en-US"
}

JSON Request captured in the Intent when invoked from LaunchRequest. It shows that intent is not set then. I believe that is why it keeps failing when I try to emit elicit in the fooIntent implementation as shown above.

{
    "type": "LaunchRequest",
    "requestId": "amzn1.echo-api.request.972bb705-d181-495e-bf60-991f2bd8fbb1",
    "timestamp": "2017-12-30T21:35:21Z",
    "locale": "en-US"
}
  • Amit
Suneet Patil
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Amit
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3 Answers3

2

As specified in Amazon's documentation, the dialog interface is meant to fill all required slots of a specific intent:

The questions and answers are intended to gather and confirm values for all of the intent’s required slots. The conversation continues until all slots needed for the intent are filled and confirmed.

In your case, the user's request is not an intent (i.e. of the IntentRequest type), but a LaunchRequest. As such,it has no interaction model and no slots to elicit, even though it is processed by an intent handler.

You should get your Skill to work as intended with a deep invocation, like

Alexa, tell xyz skill to make me a sandwich

(if the sandwich intent, or in your case the fooIntent, has a WHEN slot to elicit).

Hope this helps!

Florian Hollandt
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  • Thank you. I do not see `this.event.request.intent.slots.foo.value` available in the intent that I am calling from launchrequest. Updated my question above with the requests I see in the console as well as some code for handlers. – Amit Dec 30 '17 at 21:39
  • Hi @amit, I expanded my answer, so that it should now cover your case. let me know if it explains your Skill's behavior! – Florian Hollandt Jan 01 '18 at 12:35
  • Hey thank you for your response. I inferred the same after reading documentation yesterday. Now I am asking user to invoke an Intent from within the LaunchRequest with a brief welcome message. However it would have been nicer to have ability to invoke `intent` from `request`. I must say I liked the Dialog and delegation model. – Amit Jan 01 '18 at 16:42
0

try this,

this.emitWithState("IntentName");

Hope this helps. all the best :)

Suneet Patil
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0

Calling an intent from another intent can be simply done using the following snippet - \ this.emit("Intent name")

In the response of your first intent, give the name of the intent you wish to call.

Shivanshu Garg
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