Getting an Alexa Slot value out of an intent

Question

I'm working to build an Alexa skill and have run into a roadblock on getting my slot values out of the intent object. The intent object JSON looks like so:

"intent": {
    "name": "string",
    "slots": {
      "string": {
        "name": "string",
        "value": "string"
      }
   }
}

My question is what will that first "string" value be to identify the slots? The documentation has this:

A map of key-value pairs that further describes what the user meant based on a predefined intent schema. The map can be empty.

    The key is a string that describes the name of the slot. Type: string.
    The value is an object of type slot. Type: object. See Slot Object.

Does this mean the key to get the slot is the name I set in the Interaction Model? The only reason I'm hesitant to think that is because we already have a name object in the slot, which is definitely the name of the slot -- so if the way to access a specific slot was via the name, the name parameter would be redundant (you already know the name from accessing the slot.)

Does anyone know how I go about accessing individual slot values in an Alexa skill?

I'm using NodeJS for this skill by the way.

Answer 1

Since I had a lot of trouble with this, a more concrete answer (now) is:

'PersonIntent': function () {
    var text = 'Hello ' + this.event.request.intent.slots.FirstPerson.value;

    this.emit(':tell', text);
},

With this intent schema:

{
    "intents": [
        {
            "intent": "PersonIntent",
            "slots": [
                {
                    "name": "FirstPerson",
                    "type": "AMAZON.DE_FIRST_NAME"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Answer 2

This is an example of an intent with your structure:

"intent": {
    "name": "MovieIntent",
    "slots": {
     "string": {
        "name": "Movie",
        "value": "Titanic"
     }
  }
}

So, this means that the Intent you are using is named: Movie Intent (the one you set in your Interaction Model). And you will get the value this way:

var movieSlot = intent.slots.Movie.value;

Answer 3

As of Jul, 2019: You can access it in your intent handler as follows

if (handlerInput.requestEnvelope.request.intent.slots.SLOTNAME === undefined) {
    text = 'Hello! SLOTNAME not identified';
} else {
    text = 'Hello!, SLOTNAME identified: ' + handlerInput.requestEnvelope.request.intent.slots.SLOTNAME.value;
}

Replace SLOTNAME with your slot name. It is also very important that undefined is just as it is as an object, and not undefined

Answer 4

Lets assume we have a intent with name create meeting request in interaction model.

"intents": [
    {
        "name": "CreateMeetingRequest",
        "slots": [
            {
                "name": "meetingdate",
                "type": "AMAZON.DATE",
                "samples": [
                    "{meetingdate} at {meetingTime} for {duration}",
                    "{meetingdate} at {meetingTime}",
                    "{meetingdate} and {meetingTime}",
                    "{meetingdate}"
                ]
            },
            {
                "name": "meetingTime",
                "type": "AMAZON.TIME",
                "samples": [
                    "{meetingTime} for {duration}",
                    "{meetingTime}"
                ]
            },
            {
                "name": "duration",
                "type": "AMAZON.DURATION",
                "samples": [
                    "{duration}"
                ]
            },
            {
                "name": "subject",
                "type": "AMAZON.SearchQuery",
                "samples": [
                    "{subject}"
                ]
            },
            {
                "name": "toName",
                "type": "AMAZON.US_FIRST_NAME",
                "samples": [
                    "{toName}"
                ]
            }
        ],
        "samples": [
            "meeting invite",
            "set up meeting",
            "setup meeting",
            "{meetingdate} at {meetingTime}",
            "create meeting with {toName}",
            "schedule a meeting with {toName} on {meetingdate} at {meetingTime} for {duration}",
            "Setup meeting with {toName}",
            "create meeting",
            "Setup meeting on {meetingdate} at {meetingTime}",
            "Setup new meeting",
            "create meeting request"
        ]
    }
]

And you wanna access it in lambda code. You can use below lines.

'CreateMeetingRequest': function () {
    const toName = (this.event.request.intent.slots.toName.value ? this.event.request.intent.slots.toName.value.toLowerCase() : null);
    const subject = (this.event.request.intent.slots.subject.value ? this.event.request.intent.slots.subject.value.toLowerCase() : null);
    const meetingdate = (this.event.request.intent.slots.meetingdate.value ? this.event.request.intent.slots.meetingdate.value : null);
    const meetingTime = (this.event.request.intent.slots.meetingTime.value ? this.event.request.intent.slots.meetingTime.value : null);
    const duration = (this.event.request.intent.slots.duration.value ? this.event.request.intent.slots.duration.value : null);

    console.log("toName:",toName,", meetingdate:",meetingdate,", meetingTime:", meetingTime);
    //your business logic
},

this is the Object contains complete JSON request from alexa. So you can access any slot by using slotname Eg: if we want to access subject slot then we can use this.event.request.intent.slots.subject.value