Alexa / Lex Intent design for adjusting numeric value

Question

I'm unsure how to model an Alexa skill that involves adjusting numeric parameters and should allow both relative and absolute adjustments.

Utterances could be similar to:

• Set temperature to 20 degrees
• Raise temperature by 2 degrees
• Increase the temperature to 25 degrees
• etc.

Idea 1: Create separate intents for increase, decrease, and set

The utterances of these three are going to be nearly identical which is against recommended best practices.

Idea 2: One intent containing a {AdjustmentType} Slot

That {AdjustmentType} slot would contain the values increase|decrease|set and according aliases. This way I'd no longer have multiple intents with very similar utterances but I would additionally need to deal with to and by who change the meaning and basically overrule {AdjustmentType}. I could simply create another slot type for this and deal with it using Lambda. I'm wondering though whether this is really the way to go as I would end up having utterances that contain little more than slots.

What are your thoughts on this?

Answer 1

As {AdjustmentType} is your on slot type the better solution would be to create custom slots for AdjustmentType. You can have multiple utterences for a given intent. It means even if you have only one intent you can configure multiple sample utterences and it will invoke those utterences based on your voice input.