In this chapter, you will build a cooking application called Henry's Kitchen and learn how to create voice user interfaces using the ASK for Amazon Echo devices. Using Henry's Kitchen, your users will be able to make the following statements:
- I want to cook a vegetarian burger
- I want to make a pizza
After receiving the request from the user, Henry's Kitchen will consume the REST API from a third party called Spoonacular (https://spoonacular.com/food-api) and then use the result received from Spoonacular, which will recommend the types of dishes the user can cook and send them back to Alexa. Finally, Alexa will send the answer back to the user via an Amazon Echo device.
In summary, here are the steps that describe the workflow:
- The user sends a request to the Amazon Echo.
- The Amazon Echo sends the request to the Henry's Kitchen Alexa skill.
- Alexa decodes the request into an intent and sends the request to the web service endpoint Node.js server hosted in Microsoft Azure.
- The web service endpoint Node.js server calls a third-party REST API, Spoonacular.
- Spoonacular sends food recommendations to the Node.js server.
- The web service endpoint Node.js server responds to Alexa with the result.
- Alexa sends the response to the Amazon Echo.
- The Amazon Echo responds to the user.
The following flowchart shows the architectural diagram of Henry's Kitchen:
