Using Alexa Skill Management (SMAPI) vs CLI

user_4418042 0
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Now that it's available, I want to use the Alexa SMAPI to manage Skill models, much like I can with Actions on Google via the Dialogflow API. In the SMAPI docs, it says:

"If you are building your own tool or service to integrate with the API, you will need to implement OAuth 2.0 integration with Login with Amazon to request your users’ authorization and retrieve access tokens used to call the Skill Management API. See the Developer Guide for Login With Amazon. The API requires using the authorization code grant type."

To use the Dialogflow API, all you have to provide is the developer access token from your Agent. To use SMAPI, each request must have an Authorization header whose value should be the access token retrieved from Login with Amazon.

I have a basic question about applying the instructions in the ​LWA Dev Guide​ to get this access token. It is all set up to tell you how to use LWA with a website. I'm not setting up SMAPI calls from a website. I just want to have a Lambda function that gets triggered to launch nodejs code to update a Skill. How do I apply those instructions in that context? Per above, the Authorization Code Grant section on p25 of the guide is applicable. Is there a way to just get the auth code that I can use to get an access_token directly, vs via a redirect_uri? In other words I'm wondering if you can use the LWA framework and therefore SMAPI outside of websites.

Or is SMAPI really only set up to be used with a website, and we're just supposed to use the CLI for use cases like I'm describing?

login-with-amazon alexa-skills-kit
3 Answers

The customer has to use the Amazon.com login to authenticate and authorize your app to use the APIs on their behalf. That part requires a web browser.

Once it has been completed and you have the Access Token and Refresh Token, you'll never need to use the web again... unless the customer logs out of your service via a mechanism you provide or deauthorizes your service via the Login with Amazon applications controls in their Amazon account control panel. Then they'd need to log back in via Login with Amazon or re-authorize your app via Login with Amazon.

UPDATE: Considering your comments...

Sounds like you just want to write scripts for yourself and be able to do so without having to write an authentication workflow into it, instead using some access codes you get from your developer control panel.

So here's a possible solution: Do the Alexa Skills Kit Command Line Interface (ASK CLI) setup on a machine you control.

npm install -g ask-cli
ask init

It will open a browser for you and run the auth for you. Then it will write your access and refresh tokens to a config file on your local machine. If you're on Linux or Mac terminal you may need to "sudo" the install.

The documentation of the init command tells you where you can find your config file. Copy your tokens from it to your script and you should be able to run SMAPI commands on skills associated with that developer account (haven't tried it myself, but it looks like you're requesting the same scopes when setting up Login with Amazon for SMAPI or using it in the ASK CLI init, so those tokens should work).

You'll still need to refresh the access token periodically, but you don't have to stand up any web site architecture.

Does that help?

user_4544640

I also had a problem finding the right documentation on how to create a token for SMAPI access without having to implement LWA. I want to create Lambda function the retrieves a skill's intent history.

The intent history documentation only mentions that a LWA token is required, but not how to create one.

A LWA token for SMAPI access can be created via ask-cli.

See here

Since links can change I paste the excerpt from the documentation:

util command

The util command provides utility tools to manage Alexa skill development.

Subcommands Task Subcommand Generate LWA (Login With Amazon) access_token and refresh_token, which may be needed for use with Alexa developer tools generate-lwa-tokens generate-lwa-tokens

Generates an LWA access token and refresh token, which may be required by the skill to access Alexa development tools.

To use this feature, you must whitelist a URL following these steps:

Browse to https://developer.amazon.com/home.html.
Select Apps & Services on the top menu bar.
Select Security Profile in the submenu bar.
Pick the profile you want to use and select the Web settings tab. If you do not have a profile, you can create one by clicking Create a

New Security Profile and following the instructions. Click Edit and paste these URLs to Allowed Return URLs: http://127.0.0.1:9090/cb (if using the default option to open a browser) or https://s3.amazonaws.com/ask-cli/response_parser.html (if using the --no-browser option) Save the change.

generate-lwa-tokens command format

$ ask util generate-lwa-tokens [--scope ] [--no-browser]

I couldn't find out which of the possible scopes I need for my case (read the intent history of a skill). I was assuming that alexa::ask:skills:read should be the correct scope. But it wasn't. It tested token creation with other ask-scopes but non of them created a token that let me call the intent history. Only calling ask util generate-lwa-tokens with no scope created me a working token.

user_58513680

You can make SMAPI calls in from JavaScript (Lambda's, etc) using the Node.js SDK, with docs available here.

In order to authenticate with SMAPI, you're going to need to do the following:

  1. Set up an LWA security profile.
  2. Use the ASK CLI to exchange your LWA Client ID and Client Secret for an LWA refresh token using ask util generate-lwa-tokens --client-id <Client ID> --client-confirmation <Client Secret>.
  3. Use this refresh token when you initialize the SMAPI node SDK:
const Alexa = require('ask-smapi-sdk');

// specify the refreshTokenConfig with clientId, clientSecret and refreshToken generated in the previous step
const refreshTokenConfig = {
    clientId,
    clientSecret, 
    refreshToken
}
const smapiClient = new Alexa.StandardSmapiClientBuilder()
    .withRefreshTokenConfig(refreshTokenConfig)
    .client();

You will then be able to hit SMAPI through function calls on the SDK!

Helpful resource on this: https://levelup.gitconnected.com/email-yourself-daily-alexa-skill-metrics-updates-using-lambda-smapi-and-ses-9c16ac97c1f8

user_146485280
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