A starter kit for developing bots on Alexa, powered by the Recast.AI platform.
Note: This project is currently in beta version and can be modified at any time.
We recommend to use at least node v4.3.0
Create an account on the Recast.AI platform and follow this quick tutorial to create your first bot on the interface.
Follow the instructions on the dedicated article on our blog to integrate with Alexa.
git clone https://github.com/RecastAI/starter-alexa.git my-bot && cd my-bot
using npm
npm install
or yarn
yarn
using npm REQUEST_TOKEN=xxxxxxxx npm start
using yarn REQUEST_TOKEN=xxxxxxxxx yarn start
where REQUEST_TOKEN
is your bot's request token.
- download ngrok
- launch it:
./ngrok http 3000
Code | Documentation |
---|---|
Receiving messages | The Recast.AI SDK - connect |
Sending messages | The Recast.AI SDK - connect |
Rich messaging | See the different payload message |
Manage the conversation | The Recast.AI SDK - converse |
To host your bot and deploy your code, create a repository on Github, and push this code on it. Connect your github account on Recast:
- Go to your bot page
- Click on the RUN tab, and on the Bot Hosting menu
- Connect your Github account
- Select the repository you've just created
- Wait a little, we're starting your instance...
Every time you will push onto the master branch, we'll deploy your code 👏
Since we deploy your code in generic containers, there are 3 requirements:
- Your package.json must contain the
build
task. It must be present even if empty or just copying files. The default one you will find in the starter kit is"build": "babel src -d lib"
to compile your Javascript. So you can code with your favorite ES6, ES7 features 👍 - A lib directory must be present (by default it's created with the
build
task) - The entrypoint of your code in production must be in the
lib/bot.js
file. This file must contain an export of abot
function namedbot
. It takes as the first argument the body of the request (Bot Connector, custom curl,...)
You can change all other file names, directory structures, but be sure that these three points work fine!
You can add any env. variable you want in the Bot Hosting section and then use it in your code with this syntax: process.env.MY_ENV_VAR_NAME
You can view the whole API reference at man.recast.ai. You can follow us on Twitter at @recastai for updates and releases.
Copyright (c) [2017] Recast.AI
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.