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Is it possible to launch an Alexa App with just its name? This is similar to when you ask it what the weather is.

"Alexa, weather"

However I would like to be able to say

"Alex, weather in Chicago" and have it return that value

I can't seem to get the app to launch without a connecting word. Things like ask, open, tell would count as a connecting word.

I have searched the documentation but can't find mention of it, however there are apps in the app store that do this.

Alex
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2 Answers2

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It is documented in the first item here.

I've verified that this works with my own skill. One thing I've noticed is that Alexa's speech recognition is much worse when invoked in this manner presumably because it requires matching against a greater set of possible words. I have to really enunciate in a quiet room to get Alexa to recognize my invocation name in this context.

David Anderson
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  • I believe my question was very poorly worded. I will update the question. The part I just now realized that I left out was that after the invocation of the skill I would like to pass a variable – Alex Aug 01 '16 at 19:31
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When developing a custom skill you have to use the connecting words e.g. Alexa, ask your invocation name to do something.

If you want to pass a variable, you have to specify the sample utterances:

OneshotTideIntent get high tide
OneshotTideIntent get high tide for {City} {State}

Then you handle cases in your code when user does not provide these values. For examples see https://github.com/amzn/alexa-skills-kit-js

When writing the example phrases you use the following construct: "Alexa, [connecting word] [your invocation name], [sample utterance]". As far as I have noticed she is rather picky and you have to be exact when invoking custom skill (the voice recognition works way better with built in skills)

EDIT: launching skill without connecting word is possible when developing "smart home" skill

Shmarkus
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