phlexa-mezzio-skeleton

Skeleton application to build voice applications for Amazon Alexa with phlexa, PHP and Mezzio.

Dependencies

• PHP 7
• phlexa
• phlexa for Laminas Mezzio
• Mezzio micro-framework

This skeleton application is built with Mezzio. For further details about the Mezzio micro-framework please refer to the official docs.

Installation

Create a new project based on the skeleton application simply with Composer:

composer create-project phoice/phlexa-mezzio-skeleton name-of-your-project

What you get

• A Mezzio application setup for you to handle requests from Amazon Alexa and to send your responses back to Alexa. The application is based on the phlexa Library
• An Alexa application based on phlexa with a simple HelloIntent to send some messages back to the user. It even contains a privacy page ready to use.
• A text helper for the Alexa Application to handle messages and titles for your skill.
• Signature validation is already built-in.
• Request logging is also setup for you.

Little tutorial

1. Create an account at the Amazon Developer Portal: https://developer.amazon.com/de/
2. Switch to the Alexa section and choose the Alexa Skills Kit. https://developer.amazon.com/edw/home.html#/skills
3. Add a new skill.
4. In the Skill information:
   • Choose the "Custom Interaction Model" and a Language
   • Enter a name for your skill "Hello World" and an invocation name "hello world"
   • Save
5. On the Interaction model:
   • Launch the Skill Builder
   • Add an Intent with the Name "HelloIntent"
   • Add "hello world" as a sample utterance and press enter
   • Save the model
   • Build the model
6. Proceed to the configuration:
   • Select the HTTPS endpoint and pick a geographical region
   • Now copy the URL of your server (see below) as the endpoint URL.
   • Save
7. Proceed to the SSL Certificate:
   • Choose the appropriate option.
   • Save
8. Proceed to the Test:
   • Now you can test your new skill.
9. Fill in the Publishing Information and Privacy & Compliance section when you finished developing and testing the skill.

For further details please refer to the docs.

Setup your server

To get your skill running with PHP you need to setup your server which supports PHP 7. Install the application and setup a SSL Certificate. For further details please refer to the docs.

If you have setup your server you can test the Hello example skill with the following URL: https://your.server.com/hello/

Just sent a POST request (for example with Postman) with these headers:

Content-Type: application/json
signaturecertchainurl : https://s3.amazonaws.com/echo.api/echo-api-cert-4.pem
signature: B/bxAdkIabkzsScfUsSfkz7pJrNLc1eoOOLk8qwG1ZudQRv7KcvyNa/91g74Zg3cRpifXEco4669MaZb4Cqs+vZ9TaTfftAMzy/Pc79AMuf1dU6GfUU7tp6cuavfqTD8cWlYN5TjEMCJbS1Y+VU929mX0edOZcZin7db6bOoZHu5gU8OSQ2r+6UMk88z5uuSjPyt9Du9vaC3Ics/Br30fEIplIgCt4y/UGRK76Rqo4L/DuNjty3o2mcU8bICK5xfZwCeH7b5UFwdjngtp8VfhKPtosZmCuWvMn+y9HoS06ll9cdI1FPLN9w7KwMZFY8UzTc+0GfAwntxzlowAwkPhQ==

To simulate the launch of the skill use this body:

{
  "session": {
    "sessionId": "SessionId.test",
    "application": {
      "applicationId": "amzn1.ask.skill.place-your-skill-id-here"
    },
    "attributes": {},
    "user": {
      "userId": "amzn1.ask.account.test"
    },
    "new": true
  },
  "request": {
    "type": "LaunchRequest",
    "requestId": "EdwRequestId.test",
    "locale": "de-DE",
    "timestamp": "2017-01-26T20:38:55Z"
  },
  "version": "1.0"
}

And to test the HelloIntent use this body:

{
  "session": {
    "sessionId": "SessionId.test",
    "application": {
      "applicationId": "amzn1.ask.skill.place-your-skill-id-here"
    },
    "attributes": {},
    "user": {
      "userId": "amzn1.ask.account.test"
    },
    "new": true
  },
  "request": {
    "type": "IntentRequest",
    "requestId": "EdwRequestId.test",
    "locale": "de-DE",
    "timestamp": "2017-01-27T20:29:59Z",
    "intent": {
      "name": "HelloIntent",
      "slots": {}
    }
  },
  "version": "1.0"
}

Configuration

Have a closer look at these configuration files for activating the signature validation and the request logging feature.

• /config/autoload/phlexa.config.global.php
• /config/autoload/phlexa.config.development.php

Develop on Docker

There is a docker file wish you can use for your local development. Your local code will also mount into the docker contaner. To access the server type into the browser "http:://localhost"

• install docker (see: https://docs.docker.com/install/)
• start "docker-compose up -d"
• install vendor packages "docker exec phlexa-mezzio-skeleton_php-apache_1 composer install"
• open in browser "http://localhost"

Hint: There also a maria db server included in this docker files. You can find the user and the password in file "./mariadb/Dockerfile" The maria db is not necessary to run the skeleton app. If you don't want to create the maria db modify the dockerfile.