Amazon has added 4 more ‘slots’ for 3rd party developers of Alexa skills. When building an Alexa skill with Amazon’s Custom Skill API, developers define a voice interaction model that describes how users will interact with their skill. The model includes intents, which Alexa uses to the users’ spoken words to actions they’d like the skill to take, & slots. Amazon’s predefined slots eliminate the need for them to come up with common use cases themselves.
Here’s the announcement:
The AMAZON.CreativeWorkType, AMAZON.Food, AMAZON.Sport, and AMAZON.VideoGame built-in slot types are now available for developers to use in all Alexa locales. You can use these and other built-in slot types to save time in your skill development and to improve your customer experience. Although the slots are currently in public beta, you can use them in your skills and publish to the skills store.
Simplify and Improve your Interaction Model Using the New Built-In Slot Types
Built-in slot types are defined by Amazon for many common skill use cases in order to save you time, and to provide a more consistent customer experience across skills. For example, the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) includes built-in slot types for capturing date, time, numbers, and more. We define the representative list of values for each built-in and improve it over time, eliminating the need for you to do this work individually.
Starting today, you can use the following slot types in all locales supported by Alexa:
- AMAZON.CreativeWorkType, which captures types of creative works, such as “soundtrack,” “book,” or “album.”
- AMAZON.Food, which captures food items, such as “bacon,” “scrambled egg,”, and “lemon juice.”
- AMAZON.Sport, which captures the names of sports, such as “gymnastics,”, “basketball,”, and “team handball.”
- AMAZON.VideoGame, which captures video game titles, such as “Doom Two,” “Lemmings,” and “The Sims.”
You can find more information on custom and built-in slot types in the Slot Type Reference.
