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Jeez, I can hardly say "go read my book", when you've already done so! :-) But, yeah, I tried not to replicate Amazon's tutorials in my book. So they are more about the general approach and advanced tricks rather than a blow-by-blow. >One challenge I'm having is in performing a unit >test using the Test button within Lambda. I found the testing suggestions from Amazon to be nearly useless. Hand coding JSON (including the date!) in Lambda, or CURL is just not workable in a professional context. That's partly the reason I wrote EchoSim, so you could do reasonable testing. At worst, it will at least format your JSON correctly to send to your skill. Now, using EchoSim with Lambda isn't obvious. The next draft of my book actually has two new sections on testing Lambda functions using EchoSim. That doesn't help you right now. (If you drop me a line at jo@111george.com I'll send you the draft, if you would like to "play test" it for me!) >#1 what is the correct JSON for "WhatsMyColorIntent" to reply with >"Your favorite color is blue" using the Lambda test button? The below code works for me. The key is that the lambda function stores its state in the session attributes. If you send in the standard text for "MyColorIsIntent" setting it to blue, you will see "attributes": {"favoriteColor": "blue"} come back in the response. You need to add that into the submission. Sending: [code] { "session": { "new": false, "sessionId": "session1234", "attributes": {"favoriteColor": "blue"}, "user": { "userId": null }, "application": { "applicationId": "amzn1.echo-sdk-ams.app.[unique-value-here]" } }, "version": "1.0", "request": { "intent": { "slots": { "Color": { "name": "Color", "value": "blue" } }, "name": "WhatsMyColorIntent" }, "type": "IntentRequest", "requestId": "request5678" } } [/code] Receiving: [code] { "version": "1.0", "sessionAttributes": {}, "response": { "outputSpeech": { "type": "PlainText", "text": "Your favorite color is blue, goodbye" }, "card": { "type": "Simple", "title": "SessionSpeechlet - WhatsMyColorIntent", "content": "SessionSpeechlet - Your favorite color is blue, goodbye" }, "reprompt": { "outputSpeech": { "type": "PlainText", "text": null } }, "shouldEndSession": true } } [/code] >#2 is there a way to capture the incoming JSON text >string from within Lambda? It isn't in the logs unless you put it in the logs. I'm more familiar with Java. For that, your Lambda function gets passed a "context" value, and that value has a getLog() function with an object you can log output too. Also it seems to redriect System.out to the log. I note in the sample Javascript code that the first function has a profile "exports.handler = function (event, context)". This looks like the same context object. However, context.logger.log("test") and context.getLogger().log("test") don't work, so I don't know what methods are there. print("test") also doesn't work. But, then, the very first line in the function calls console.log(). Doh. I added in this line: [code] exports.handler = function (event, context) { try { console.log("event.session.application.applicationId=" + event.session.application.applicationId); [b]console.log(JSON.stringify(event));[/b] [/code] and the output now contains the JSON: [code] START RequestId: d20bb3fb-4476-11e5-b99d-a9b0f0ea6c47 2015-08-17T00:28:02.750Z d20bb3fb-4476-11e5-b99d-a9b0f0ea6c47 event.session.application.applicationId=amzn1.echo-sdk-ams.app.[unique-value-here] 2015-08-17T00:28:02.751Z d20bb3fb-4476-11e5-b99d-a9b0f0ea6c47 {"session":{"new":false,"sessionId":"session1234","attributes":{"favoriteColor":"blue"},"user":{"userId":null},"application":{"applicationId":"amzn1.echo-sdk-ams.app.[unique-value-here]"}},"version":"1.0","request":{"intent":{"slots":{"Color":{"name":"Color","value":"blue"}},"name":"WhatsMyColorIntent"},"type":"IntentRequest","requestId":"request5678"}} 2015-08-17T00:28:02.751Z d20bb3fb-4476-11e5-b99d-a9b0f0ea6c47 onIntent requestId=request5678, sessionId=session1234 END RequestId: d20bb3fb-4476-11e5-b99d-a9b0f0ea6c47 [/code] >I presume if I had my own web endpoint I could do this. I find working with web endpoints much easier. But I'm generally a lot more familiar with them. >#3 Does anyone have an EC2 image I slogged through the Amazon tutorials and got one working. You just really have to follow them point-by-point. Push the stack each time they send you off to another tutorial, do that one, then pop the stack and continue on. The first time I did it I checked in a file I shouldn't have on GitHub, it got snatched by a hacker, and they racked up $1500 in charges. Embarrassing since my current day job is "Ethical Hacker". But Amazon reversed them. Just saying, even with 20+ years of experience in this it's still rather error prone. I don't have an image, but I did create a war file at one point with a plain old fashioned servlet endpoint that I was able to deploy on IBM's Bluemix. I can dig that up if it is any use.

Wow! "favoriteColor!"... That was the missing link. I think one of the 1001 versions of JSON I submitted was probably structured identical to what you suggested, with the exception that I was trying to call the attribute "Color" and would not have guessed "favoriteColor." Thank you, jjaquinta for your prompt, thorough and thoughtful reply. I will definitely get in touch with you right away over the e-mail you provided, but want to also say thanks, publicly. Jim