Managing state for intents automatically in the session.

[ajcrites]

This would be a pretty large change, but the current Amazon Alexa SDK has a concept of states for intents. You can set a state in the session handler and the SDK will trigger a particular callback based on the intent and the recorded state.

We can bake this into the intent handler. I suggest adding a method response.state() (or a method on Session) that you can use to manipulate the response state -- set, get, or clear it.

Then you can update the intent handler to (optionally) include a state and trigger on a state + intent match.

[dblock]

Is this the same as https://github.com/alexa-js/alexa-app/issues/102?

[ajcrites]

No, although they are related in that they are both features that the Alexa SDK has that we don't.

[buffcode]

Would be really nice to see as this will be a common issue (as stated by Amazon itself). Not all intents make sense every time. For example Yes/NoIntent should only be accessible in certain states and not everywhere in your app.

I propose two options for this:

1. add an parameter or option to app.intent which is a function (or Promise) and will be called in order to check whether or not this intent may be called. Pro: very dynamic, Cons: maybe too complex for some use-cases, maybe breaking change.

Example:

app.intent(
  "OrderSomeItemIntent",
  {
    check: (req) => { return req.getSession().get('hasLoggedIn') === true; }
  },
  (req, res) => { console.log("Item ordered"); }
);

2. Add some alexa/alexa-skills-kit-sdk-for-nodejs compatible structure to maintain states. Pros: easy to adapt when switching libraries, easy to understand, Cons: not really dynamic

Example:

const states = {
  states.STARTMODE: {
    'NewSession': function () {
        this.emit('NewSession'); // Uses the handler in newSessionHandlers
    }
    //...
  },
  states.GUESSMODE: {
    // Intents only available in GUESSMODE
  }
}

[maegnes]

Any news on this? Especially when developing skills with a larger complexity state handling would be so useful.