Alexa Daily Greeting & Music Skill

An event-driven Alexa skill built using AWS Lambda and Amazon S3 that greets users based on the time of day, delivers a daily motivational quote, and plays mood-appropriate music on explicit user request.

This project was built for practical learning, focusing on understanding Alexa’s event lifecycle, serverless architecture, and real-device behavior rather than writing large amounts of code.

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Project Overview

This custom Alexa skill provides the following functionality:

• Time-based greeting (morning / afternoon / evening / night)
• Daily motivational quote spoken by Alexa
• Music playback based on time of day
• Pause, resume, and stop handled using Alexa’s built-in voice controls
• Fully event-driven and serverless architecture
• Tested on a real Alexa device, not simulator-only

The project emphasizes:

• Correct use of AWS services
• Respecting Alexa platform constraints
• Clean architectural separation between conversation and media playback

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Tech Stack

• Alexa Skills Kit
• Node.js, ES Modules
• public HTTPS audio hosting
• SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language)
• Alexa AudioPlayer Interface
• Alexa Developer Console
• Physical Alexa device testing

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Design Motivation

While learning AWS Lambda, the goal was to understand how different triggers work in real systems.

Instead of using common triggers like HTTP or schedules, this project explores voice-based event triggers using :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}.

The idea was simple:

Trigger Lambda through voice, return structured responses, and understand how Alexa manages conversation and media lifecycles.

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Core Features

Time-Based Greeting

• Time calculated using UTC offset for India
• Time ranges:
  • Morning: 06–12
  • Afternoon: 12–18
  • Evening: 18–24
  • Night: 00–06

Daily Quote System

• Quotes stored locally in a JSON file
• Deterministic daily quote selection using a day-based seed
• Same quote for all users on the same day
• No external APIs (zero cost)

Music Playback

• Audio files stored in Amazon S3
• Organized by time of day
• Random track selection from the appropriate folder
• HTTPS public URLs (Alexa requirement)

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S3 Bucket Structure

music/
├── Morning/
├── Afternoon/
├── Evening/
└── Night/

Skill Flow

Invocation
  ↓
LaunchRequest
  ↓
Greeting + Quote (SSML)
  ↓
Session Remains Open
  ↓
User Intent: Play Music
  ↓
AudioPlayer.Play
  ↓
Session Ends
  ↓
Music Plays

Architechture Diagram

+-------------------+
|       User        |
|  (Voice Command)  |
+---------+---------+
          |
          v
+-------------------+
|   Alexa Device    |
+---------+---------+
          |
          v
+-------------------+
|  Alexa Skill      |
| (Intent Routing)  |
+---------+---------+
          |
          v
+-----------------------------+
|        AWS Lambda           |
|  - Time Detection           |
|  - Quote Selection          |
|  - Intent Handling          |
+---------+-------------------+
          |
          | (Audio URL request)
          v
+-----------------------------+
|        Amazon S3            |
|  - Morning / Afternoon      |
|  - Evening / Night          |
+-----------------------------+

Lifecycle-aware diagram

[ User ]
   |
   | "Alexa, open personal greeting"
   v
[ LaunchRequest ]
   |
   v
[ Lambda ]
   |
   |-- Greeting (SSML)
   |-- Daily Quote
   |
[ Session OPEN ]
   |
   | "yes play the music"
   v
[ PlayMusicIntent ]
   |
   v
[ Lambda ]
   |
   |-- AudioPlayer.Play
   |-- Fetch S3 HTTPS URL
   |
[ Session ENDS ]
   |
   v
[ Alexa AudioPlayer ]
   |
   v
[ Music Plays from S3 ]

Repository Structure

Source/        → Lambda function and local data files  
Screenshots/   → Real-device and console screenshots  
README.md      → Project overview and architecture  
ERRORS.md      → Detailed issues and architectural learnings