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Amazon redesigns Alexa Skills Developer Console

Amazon's new beta for developing Alexa skills is centered around build, test, launch, and measure phases.
Written by Jake Smith, Contributor
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Amazon on Thursday launched a new Alexa Skills Kit Developer Console in beta, with an updated user interface to provide a more "streamlined" development process. The console allows developers to create, manage, and publish skills for Alexa-enabled devices like Echo.

With the update, Amazon's developer console now organizes skill tasks into build, test, launch, and measure phases that are accessible from the top navigation. The left navigation enables developers to choose specific steps within each phase and to configure account linking and permissions for skills.

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Amazon

Build includes a visual interface for developers to create intents, slots, sample utterances, and the dialog model. The test page enables developers to test their skill with voice or text. Further, launch provides a preview of the skill on Amazon's store, and measure displays statistics on sessions and customers.

Amazon said some features are not yet supported in the beta version of its developer console.

Trying to encourage developers to build more skills, in August 2017 Amazon rolled out more options for developers to earn money. Cash is given to developers who build Alexa skills with high customer engagement stats, in addition to metrics such as usage, visits, new customers, and ratings. Further, Amazon made it cheaper to host Alexa skills on AWS.

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