Virtual-alexa NPM

Virtual Alexa

Virtual Alexa allows for interacting with skills programmatically.

The core Virtual Alexa API provides several routines - the three most essential ones:

* launch: Generates JSON for a launch request
* utter: Generates JSON as if the user said the given phrase  
* intend: Generates JSON as if the given intent was uttered

Why Do I Need This?

This library allows for easy testing of skills.

You can use it for:

1) Unit-testing - ensuring individual routines work correctly
2) Regression testing - ensuring the code as a whole works properly

How Do I Get It?

npm install virtual-alexa --save-dev

How Do I Use It?

Easy! Just add a line of code like so:

const va = require("virtual-alexa");
const alexa = va.VirtualAlexa.Builder()
    .handler("index.handler") // Lambda function file and name
    .interactionModelFile("./models/en-US.json") // Path to IntentSchema.json
    .create();

alexa.utter("play").then((payload) => {
    console.log("OutputSpeech: " + payload.response.outputSpeech.ssml);
    // Prints out returned SSML, e.g., "<speak> Welcome to my Skill </speak>"
});

Our "canonical" full example is the Super Simple Unit Testing project.

Virtual Alexa With Promises

Here's a more in-depth example, in the form of a Jest unit test:

test("Plays once", (done) => {
    alexa.utter("get started").then((payload) => {
        expect(payload.response.outputSpeech.ssml).toContain("What is the search term for it");
        return alexa.utter("incorrect guess");

    }).then((payload) => {
        expect(payload.response.outputSpeech.ssml).toContain("Nice try");
        return alexa.utter("incorrect guess");

    }).then((payload) => {
        expect(payload.response.outputSpeech.ssml).toContain("That is not correct");
        return alexa.utter("incorrect guess");

    }).then((payload) => {
        expect(payload.response.outputSpeech.ssml).toContain("Goodbye");
        done();

    });
});

You can see the full example this is taken from here:
https://github.com/bespoken/giftionary/blob/master/test/index.test.js

Virtual Alexa With Async/Await

And here is one that uses async/await (which makes it even more readable):

it("Accepts responses without dollars", async function () {
    const alexa = bvd.VirtualAlexa.Builder()
        .handler("index.handler") // Lambda function file and name
        .intentSchemaFile("./speechAssets/IntentSchema.json") // Uses old-style intent schema
        .sampleUtterancesFile("./speechAssets/SampleUtterances.txt")
        .create();

    const launchResponse = await alexa.launch();
    assert.include(launchResponse.response.outputSpeech.ssml, "Welcome to guess the price");

    const playerOneResponse = await alexa.utter("2");
    assert.include(playerOneResponse.response.outputSpeech.ssml, "what is your name");
    assert.include(playerOneResponse.response.outputSpeech.ssml, "contestant one");

    const playerTwoResponse = await alexa.utter("john");
    assert.include(playerTwoResponse.response.outputSpeech.ssml, "what is your name");
    assert.include(playerTwoResponse.response.outputSpeech.ssml, "Contestant 2");

    const gameStartResponse =  await alexa.utter("juan");
    assert.include(gameStartResponse.response.outputSpeech.ssml, "let's start the game");
    assert.include(gameStartResponse.response.outputSpeech.ssml, "Guess the price");

    const priceGuessResponse = await alexa.utter("200");
    assert.include(priceGuessResponse.response.outputSpeech.ssml, "the actual price was");
});

This one is using Mocha (and Babel) - you can see the full example here:
https://github.com/bespoken/GuessThePrice/blob/master/test/index-test.js

And read all the docs here:
https://bespoken.github.io/virtual-alexa/api/

Using The Request Filter

The filter is a powerful tool for manipulating the request payloads that are made to your Alexa skill.

alexa.filter((requestJSON) => {
  // Do something with the request
  requestJSON.request.locale = "en-US" // Arbitrary example of changing the request payload
});

More info on using it here.