Wrapping Up

Alexa Presentation Language for Audio is a JSON-based template language that offers a powerful way to craft rich, layered, and professional sounding audio responses from an Alexa skill.

APL-A achieves this with a half-dozen components for playing sound and speech and combining them with mixers, sequencers, and selectors. Filters empower you to apply simple effects to audio and speech, including fading in and out, trimming to length, setting the volume, and repeating audio clips.

Returning APL-A from a skill involves sending a directive in place of the typical speak() function, passing in model data that can be rendered dynamically into the reponse audio.

Coming up in the next chapter, we’re going to expand the reach of our skill beyond U.S. English, seeing how to customize Alexa’s interaction model and responses to better serve users who live in other countries and/or speak different languages.