Make Alexa Do Whatever You Want With New Amazon Alexa Skill Blueprints

Have you always wanted Alexa to have a repository of sick burns on hand? You can make that happen.

Amazon's Alexa is a great little helper AI, but there are times when it feels frustratingly locked in to a single set of responses. Sure, your pet sitter can figure out how to turn on the lights and play some music with your Echo, but what about your pet's schedule, or where you keep the leash, or the number for the vet? You could handwrite a note and leave it on the counter, but what if there was a more efficient way to get them the information. What if they could just ask Alexa?

With the new Alexa Skill Blueprints site, you can set up your Alexa-enabled device to do just that.

What Can Alexa Blueprints Do?

The Alexa Blueprints site (https://blueprints.amazon.com) gives you twenty skill blueprints to use as a starting point to launch your own, personalized interactions. In addition to keeping your pet taken care of, you can also:

Create custom question and answer responses (for those times you just want Alexa to confirm that you're the greatest)
Give your houseguests pertinent information (like how to turn on the TV or where you keep extra toilet paper)
Keep your babysitter on task with info on bedtimes and how long your kids are actually allowed to watch TV
Create a trove of jokes (which will, of course all be groan worthy) or a game of trivia on topics your family loves
Create custom interactive stories with a variety of themes.
Make custom flash cards to master a subject
Curate a list of facts to have Alexa recall on demand

And that's just a small portion of the available interactions. Amazon will be adding more as time goes on, but I was able to find a couple to immediately press into action.

How Do I Create a Custom Skill?

If you can fill out a mad libs page, you can create a skill. From the Alexa Blueprints site, select the skill you want to customize. I chose My Pet Guide