Personalize Your Alexa Experience in Minutes with Alexa Skill Blueprints

Amazon today introduced Alexa Skill Blueprints, a new way to create your own personalized skills and responses for Alexa. Using a set of easy-to-use templates, anyone can create customized experiences for Alexa within minutes. Whether it’s your own answer to the question "Alexa, what is the best city?" or a skill that offers helpful information for the pet sitter, Skill Blueprints allow you to build personalized voice experiences with Alexa, helping you make Alexa even more useful around your home.

Using Skill Blueprints is as easy as filling in the blanks. You can have fun customizing Alexa’s responses to questions like “Alexa, who is the best mom in the world?” or “Alexa, am I your favorite painter?” You can also use Skill Blueprints to create an interactive adventure story with your child as the lead character with the “Adventure” Blueprint, or create a skill to poke fun at Dad’s corny one liners with the “Family Jokes” Blueprint.  

The skills and responses you create with Skill Blueprints will be available instantly on all Alexa-enabled devices associated with your account. The Skill Blueprints announced today are for personal use only, and are not published to the Alexa Skills Store. Skills Blueprints are available today to customers in the US.

While Skills Blueprints introduce a new way to build personal experiences for Alexa, the self-service APIs, tools, documentation, and code samples in the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) – accessible from the new developer console or when used with one of our agencies or tool providers – enable you to build engaging skills and publish to the Alexa Skills Store to reach customers through tens of millions of Alexa-enabled devices.

Start Building Personalized Voice Experiences Today with Skill Blueprints

There are more than 20 Skill Blueprints available across four categories, and the selection will continue to grow:

At Home

• Custom Q&A: Customize responses to your questions
• Houseguest: Make your guests feel at home with quick access to important info
• Babysitter: Help your sitter find things, remember steps and get important info
• Pet Sitter: Help your pet sitter care for your favorite animal

Fun & Games

• Family Jokes: Create a list of your favorite jokes for when you need a laugh
• Trivia: Create your own multiple choice trivia game on any topic
• Inspirations: Curate a list of your favorite inspirational quotes
• Family Trivia: Play together and brush up on family history
• Bachelorette Party: Play to find out how well the bride’s friends know her
• Birthday Trivia: Play to see who knows the birthday girl or boy best
• Burns: Roast your friends and family with lighthearted burns
• Compliments: Flatter your favorites with a list of custom compliments
• Double Trouble: Find out which couple knows each other best with this customizable game
• First Letter: Play a game of categories starting with a certain letter

Storyteller

• Adventure: Write an adventure story where your child is the hero
• Fairy Tale: Customize an interactive prince and princess-themed tale
• Sci-Fi: Create an interactive story with a far-out theme
• Fable: Create a short narrative with a moral of the story

Learning & Knowledge

• Flash Cards: Study, test yourself, and master any subject by voice
• Facts: Keep a list of facts on your favorite topic, all in one place
• Quiz: Challenge yourself and others with a customizable quiz

How to Get Started with Skill Blueprints

Follow these three steps to start creating your own personalized voice experiences for Alexa:

1. Select your Skill Blueprint. Visit blueprints.amazon.com to browse more than 20 Skill Blueprints across four categories, including Fun & Games, At Home, Storyteller, and Learning & Knowledge.
2. Add your skill content and unleash your creativity. Each Skill Blueprint comes with pre-filled content that can be used as-is or customized as you like.
3. Complete your personalized skill with just one click. Your skill will be available on all Alexa-enabled devices associated with your Amazon account.

There is no limit to the number of skills you can create. Need to add even more hilarious jokes to your “Dad’s Jokes” skill? You can easily edit and add more content to your skill from the Skill Blueprints website.

Skill Blueprints are available now for customers in the US. Visit blueprints.amazon.com to start building your personalized Alexa skills.

More Resources

For more information about Skill Blueprints, visit our FAQ. 

Join us live on Twitch for Creating Personalized Alexa Skills with Alexa Skill Blueprints, starting at 2 PM PST on Friday, April 20. 

Source: Alexa Developer Blog