Getting Started

Installation

To install Flask-Ask:

pip install flask-ask

A Minimal Voice User Interface

A Flask-Ask application looks like this:

from flask import Flask, render_template
from flask_ask import Ask, statement

app = Flask(__name__)
ask = Ask(app, '/')

@ask.intent('HelloIntent')
def hello(firstname):
    text = render_template('hello', firstname=firstname)
    return statement(text).simple_card('Hello', text)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(debug=True)

In the code above:

  1. The Ask object is created by passing in the Flask application and a route to forward Alexa requests to.
  2. The intent decorator maps HelloIntent to a view function hello.
  3. The intent’s firstname slot is implicitly mapped to hello‘s firstname parameter.
  4. Jinja templates are supported. Internally, templates are loaded from a YAML file (discussed further below).
  5. Lastly, a builder constructs a spoken response and displays a contextual card in the Alexa smartphone/tablet app.

Since Alexa responses are usually short phrases, it’s convenient to put them in the same file. Flask-Ask has a Jinja template loader that loads multiple templates from a single YAML file. For example, here’s a template that supports the minimal voice interface above.Templates are stored in a file called templates.yaml located in the application root:

hello: Hello, {{ firstname }}

For more information about how the Alexa Skills Kit works, see Understanding Custom Skills in the Alexa Skills Kit documentation.

Additionally, more code and template examples are in the samples directory.