With this small skill you can use alexa to find and play videos from youtube (video + audio!). Feel free to share your improvements with us, maybe someone will find a better way to get the real video URL.
- You need a device with display, FireTV-Stick will not work
- Not all videos are support. There's issue with the extraction of the "real" video url, so some videos can't be played
- Clone the repository with
git clone https://github.com/mbpictures/alexa-youtube-skill.git alexa-youtube - Enter the new directory
cd alexa-youtube - Install npm modules
npm install - Run local server
npm start
Before you can use this skill, local or on a server, you need to adjust some lines of the code.
- server.js
- Find the line with the variable
alexa.appIdand set it to your alexa app id (you can find it in the amazon developer console) - Register for a free youtube api key and paste it in the variable
youtubeApiKey
- Find the line with the variable
I won't dive in skill creation in amazons alexa kit that much, for further information visit the starter guide. But here some stuff to keep in mind:
- Make sure your skill supports displays
- If you want to host your skill local you need a tunnel to the web and establish a connection with node.js. To do so you can use ngrok with a fixed port in the
server.js. Once ngrok is started, just paste the url provided by ngrok in the "link url" field of your skill. A free alternative to host your skill on a server is heroku. Push your skill to the heroku server and just paste the heroku url in the "link url" field of your skill. - Create all necessary intents for the youtube skill (below)
- SearchYoutube
- YoutubeQuery: Amazon.SearchQuery
- VideoNumber: Amazon.NUMBER
- SetResultAmountIntent
- AmountResults: Amazon.NUMBER
As json code:
{
"interactionModel": {
"languageModel": {
"invocationName": "youtube videos",
"intents": [
{
"name": "SearchYoutube",
"slots": [
{
"name": "YoutubeQuery",
"type": "AMAZON.SearchQuery"
},
{
"name": "VideoNumber",
"type": "AMAZON.NUMBER"
}
],
"samples": [
"video {VideoNumber}",
"start video {VideoNumber}",
"und search for {YoutubeQuery}",
"find videos {YoutubeQuery}",
"search for {YoutubeQuery}",
"search {YoutubeQuery}"
]
},
{
"name": "AMAZON.NextIntent",
"samples": [
"Next",
"Next video"
]
},
{
"name": "AMAZON.PreviousIntent",
"samples": [
"Back",
"Previous video"
]
},
{
"name": "SetResultAmountIntent",
"slots": [
{
"name": "AmountResults",
"type": "AMAZON.NUMBER"
}
],
"samples": [
"Amount of results {AmountResults}",
"Show me {AmountResults} results",
"I want to see {AmountResults} results"
]
}
],
"types": []
}
}
}
- To activate the skill, just say
Alexa, start youtube videos. - To search for videos
alexa, search for QUERY - To play a video
alexa, start video 2