Hands-on chatbot development with Alexa skills and Amazon Lex : create custom conversational and voice interfaces for your Amazon Echo devices and web platforms.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed October 17, 2018)

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright and Credits -- Packt Upsell -- Contributors -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Chapter 1: Understanding Chatbots -- What are chatbots? -- What makes up a chatbot? -- Intents -- Slots -- Utterances -- Designing conversation flows -- Starting with the perfect conversation diagram -- Conversation flow diagrams -- Creating a conversation flow diagram -- User stories -- Best practices -- Handling errors -- Missed utterances -- External APIs -- Errors in your code -- Tone of voice -- Identifying suitable use cases -- Designing the information for the delivery method -- Amazon Alexa and Lex -- Amazon Alexa -- Amazon Lex -- Summary -- Questions -- Chapter 2: Getting Started with AWS and Amazon CLI -- Technical requirements -- Creating an account -- Setting your region -- Navigating around AWS -- Creating a Lambda -- AWS Console -- Setting up the Lambda -- Writing your Lambda function's code -- Triggering Lambdas -- Methods for working with Lambdas -- Method 1 -- Lambda Console -- Method 2 -- Cloud9 editor -- Method 3 -- Local editing -- Creating the best local development environment -- Choosing an IDE -- Installing Node and NPM -- Folder structure -- Setting up AWS CLI -- Creating a Lambda using AWS CLI -- AWS CLI build script -- Git -- Local development setup -- Summary -- Questions -- Chapter 3: Creating Your First Alexa Skill -- Technical requirements -- Alexa Skills Kit -- Creating a Lambda to handle the request -- Creating handlers -- Building and configuring the Lambda -- Finishing skill configuration -- Testing your skills -- Troubleshooting your skill -- Creating a more useful skill -- Conversational flow diagram -- Creating the Alexa Skill -- Creating an Intent -- Internal Slots -- Finding the Skill ID -- Creating the Lambda -- Handling the whichCar Intent -- Amazon S3 -- Accessing our S3 data.

Adding S3 permissions -- Dealing with our data -- Testing our Lambda -- Finishing the Alexa Skills Kit Configuration -- Testing -- Launching your skill -- Summary -- Questions -- Further reading -- Chapter 4: Connecting Your Alexa Skills to External APIs -- Technical requirements -- External APIs -- Open Weather Map API -- Creating our weather skill -- Conversation flow design -- Creating the skill on Alexa Skills Kit -- Building Lambda to handle the requests -- Making an API request -- Final setup and testing -- Improving user experience -- Error-handling our API calls -- Session memory -- SSML -- Testing -- Summary -- Questions -- Further reading -- Chapter 5: Building Your First Amazon Lex Chatbot -- Technical requirements -- Creating an Amazon Lex chatbot -- Setting up the chatbot -- Creating an Intent -- Testing your chatbot -- Publishing your bot -- Using Slots -- Creating an FAQ chatbot -- Setting up Lex -- Gathering the data -- Creating the Intents -- Creating the Lambda Handler -- Creating a response -- Lambda fulfillment -- Building and testing -- Lex responses -- elicitSlot -- elicitIntent -- confirmIntent -- close -- delegate -- Summary -- Questions -- Chapter 6: Connecting a Lex Bot to DynamoDB -- Technical requirements -- Designing the flows -- Perfect conversations -- Flow diagrams -- Building the chatbot -- Product find -- Creating the Lambda -- Creating the data -- Lambda testing -- Completing the intent -- Add to cart -- Creating the Lambda -- DynamoDB -- Adding Dynamo permissions -- Testing -- Checkout -- Creating the Lambda -- Testing -- Saving our cart -- Creating the Lambda -- Dynamo changes -- Testing -- Retrieving a saved cart -- Creating the Lambda -- Testing -- What's in my cart? -- Creating the Lambda -- Testing -- Testing the whole bot -- Summary -- Questions -- Further reading.

Chapter 7: Publishing Your Chatbot to Facebook, Slack, Twilio, and HTTP -- Technical requirements -- Integrations -- Facebook Messenger -- Creating and connecting a Facebook Messenger app -- Slack -- Creating and connecting a Slack app -- Twilio -- Creating and connecting Twilio -- HTTP endpoint -- Creating the Lambda -- Testing -- Connecting API Gateway -- Testing -- Building the API -- Web user interface -- HTML -- Creating our script -- Styling the frontend -- Summary -- Questions -- Chapter 8: Improving the User Experience for Your Bots -- Technical requirements -- Response cards in Amazon Lex -- Creating a card -- Using cards in chats -- Alexa search queries -- Google Cloud Platform -- Continuing Lambda building -- Rebuilding the skill and testing -- Lex utterance monitoring -- Summary -- Questions -- Chapter 9: Review and Continued Development -- What we've learned -- Conversation design -- Amazon Web Services -- Amazon Alexa -- Amazon S3 -- Using APIs -- Amazon Lex -- Dynamo DB -- Publishing Lex chatbots -- Advanced features -- Continuing your learning -- Alexa -- Amazon Echo Spot and Amazon Echo Show -- Building a library of functions -- Lex -- Alexa and Lex -- Improving the build process -- Integrating more AWS services -- Integrating other APIs -- The future of chatbots -- Language understanding -- Working with spoken interactions -- Improved device interaction -- Connected devices -- Unique voice-based systems -- General Artificial Intelligence -- Improving people's opinions -- Summary -- Appendix A -- Appendix B -- Debugging -- Debugging Alexa Skills -- Check the utterances -- Save and build your model -- Check your Endpoint -- Added Alexa as a trigger for your Lambda -- Debugging Lex chatbots -- Check your utterances -- Check the intent response -- Save intents, build, and deploy -- Check your connected platform.

Check your Lambdas are working -- Debugging Lambdas -- Install all of the required packages -- Check your permissions -- Correct your Lambda code -- Check external services -- Other Books You May Enjoy -- Index.

This book will help you to discover important AWS services such as S3 and DyanmoDB. Gain practical experience building end-to-end application workflows using NodeJS and AWS Lambda for your Alexa Skills Kit. You will be able to build conversational interfaces using voice or text and deploy them to platforms like Alexa, Facebook Messenger and Slack.

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