Alexa local skills

This is a collection of alexa self hosted skills (based on ASK SDK v2):

• subsonic skill: makes your Echo play music from your local Subsonic/Airsonic server.
• remote skill: uses Broadlink RM PRO remote to control your IR devices (TV..)

To make it work you need the following:

• Server with NodeJs 8+ installed and Airsonic
• Port 443 (HTTPS) forwarded and not firewalled
• duckdns.org account or public host with HTTPS certificate (letsencrypt.org)

HTTPS and DNS configuration

Setup duckdns.org

• Create account, set domain name and get the token
• Install duckdns updater

Setup letsencrypt.org certificates on Windows

• Download Simple ACME Client for Windows
• Download curl
• Create duckdns-setdns.bat:

@echo off
set arg3=%3
curl -k "https://www.duckdns.org/update?domains={yourdomain}&token={token}&txt=%arg3%"

• Create duckdns-cleardns.bat:

@echo off
curl -k "https://www.duckdns.org/update?domains={yourdomain}&token={token}&clear=true"

• Run letsencrypt.exe and follow the steps:

  • Choose Create new Certificate with advanced options (M)
  • Choose Manually input host names (4)
  • Choose [dns-01] run external program/script as validation step (2)
  • Set create/clear dns scripts (duckdns-setdns.bat and duckdns-cleardns.bat)
  • Skip installation scripts

• The certificates will be placed in C:\ProgramData\letsencrypt-win-simple\httpsacme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org:

CA: 'ca-xxx.duckdns.org-crt.pem'
CERT: 'xxx.duckdns.org-crt.pem'
KEY: 'xxx.duckdns.org-key.pem'

The certificates expire after 90 days but they are automatically renewed by Scheduled Task. Once they are renewed you have to recopy them and restart the server.

Installation and configuration

• Clone source: git clone https://github.com/nitzzzu/alexa-local-skills

• Copy the SSL certificates (CA, CERT, KEY) in ./sslcert folder

• Deploy skills on Amazon:

  • It is required to have an Amazon developer account: Alexa console
  • Install Alexa CLI: npm install -g ask-cli
  • Link to your developer account: ask init (choose: No. Skip AWS credentials association step. when asked)
  • Deloy skills:
    • Skills schemas are places in schemas folder
    • Change url in skill manifest file skill.json (replace https://xxx.duckdns.org/remote with your duckdns account)
    • To deploy them run deploy.bat in each folder from schemas.
    • Adapt skill ids in config.js (skill ids can be found in .ask folder)

• Create configuration file config.js:

module.exports = {
    REMOTE_SKILL_ID: '[SKILL_ID]',
    SUBSONIC_SKILL_ID: '[SKILL_ID]',
    SUBSONICSERVER: 'http://192.168.1.1:4040',
    SUBSONICUSERNAME: '',
    SUBSONICPASSWORD: '',
    SSLCERTIFICATECA: './sslcert/ca-xxx.duckdns.org-crt.pem',
    SSLCERTIFICATECERT: './sslcert/xxx.duckdns.org-crt.pem',
    SSLCERTIFICATEKEY: './sslcert/xxx.duckdns.org-key.pem',
    STREAMURL: 'https://xxx.duckdns.org/stream?q='
};

• Install: npm install
• (OPTIONAL) Install as windows service: node winservice install
• Start the service OR node server.js

Skill usage

Alexa, ask subsonic to play eminem
Alexa, ask remote turn on TV