Built-in Intent Library

Note: Sign in to the developer console to build or publish your skill.

The Alexa Skills Kit provides a library of built-in intents. You can use these intents to add functionality to your skill without providing any sample utterances.

Intent Signature Syntax
Built-in Intent Categories
- Availability
Books
Calendar
Cinema Showtimes
General
Local Search
Music
Video
Weather
Standard Built-in Intents
Built-in Intent Library Documentation

Intent Signature Syntax

Each built-in intent has an intent signature. You provide this signature as the name of the intent in your intent schema. This example shows a schema with two WeatherForecast intents:

{
  "interactionModel": {
    "languageModel": {
      "invocationName": "my weather",
      "intents": [
        {
          "name": "AMAZON.SearchAction<object@WeatherForecast>",
          "samples": []
        },
        {
          "name": "AMAZON.SearchAction<object@WeatherForecast[temperature]>",
          "samples": []
        }
      ],
      "types": []
    }
  }
}

See Interaction Model Schema for the complete intent schema compatible with the developer console and the Skill Management API.

Components of the signature:

AMAZON: all built-in intents begin with the AMAZON namespace.
SearchAction: an action that identifies the action the user wants Alexa to take, such as searching for information.
object: a property of SearchAction, for identifying the entity on which it should operate.
WeatherForecast: the entity type for object. This identifies the entity the user wants to search for.
[temperature]: (optional) if included, specifies an attribute to narrow the scope of the intent. This creates an intent that is triggered when the utterance mentions the specified attribute. For instance, the intent AMAZON.SearchAction<object@WeatherForecast[temperature]> would be triggered by "what's today's temperature," but not the more generic "what's the weather today."

The following diagram illustrates how an utterance like "what's the weather in Seattle today" is translated into this intent and passed along to your skill.

Note: Slots (such as object.location.addressLocality.name and object.startDate shown in the diagram) are generated from the intent signature automatically. You do not include any slots in your intent schema.

For more about the naming structure for the built-in intents, see Understanding the Structure of the Built-in Intent Library.

Note that the standard built-in intents, for actions such as "stop" and "help" do not use the structure described above. See Standard Built-in Intents for details.

Built-in Intent Categories

The built-in intent library is organized in the categories listed below. Each category contains a set of relevant entity types. Use the links to the entity types to see the available intents.

Tip: You can use intents from different categories in the same skill. The categories are provided to help you find the intents, not dictate how you use them.

Search for Built-in Intents

In the developer console, you can search for built-in intents on the Build page. Navigate to Custom > Interaction Model > Intents, add a new intent, and select the Use an existing intent from Alexa's built-in library option.

Category	Description	Availability
Books	Intents asking about books and other written works, such as rating books, adding books to reading lists, or navigating through audio books.	Developer Preview
Calendar	Intents for asking about calendars and schedules, such as asking about upcoming events, adding events to a calendar, and looking up events such as birthdays.	Developer Preview
Cinema Showtimes	Intents for asking about show times and events at movie theaters.	Developer Preview
General	Intents for other requests that don't fall into any of the more specific categories.	Developer Preview
Local Search	Intents for asking about local businesses and locations, such as operating hours, phone numbers, and travel times to locations and businesses. For example, users can ask when a particular business is open, or ask for the phone number of a business.	Developer Preview
Music	Intents for asking about music, such as asking about songs, playlists, and music libraries.	Developer Preview
Video	Intents for asking about television and other types of video media. For example, users can ask for information about episodes of a TV show.	Developer Preview
Weather	Intents for requesting weather reports and forecasts.	Developer Preview
Standard Built-in Intents	Intents for general actions such as stopping, canceling, and asking for help. Unlike all of the other built-in intents in the library, these intents do not have a signature derived from actions, entity types, and properties. These intents cannot use slots.	Available

Availability

Developer Preview: The intents are offered as a developer preview and may improve and change as we receive feedback and iterate on the feature. Note the following limitations on the developer preview intents:
- You cannot include more than 10 of the built-in intents in a single interaction model.
- You can't define an interaction model that has no custom intents and sample utterances. Include at least one custom intent with utterances in your interaction model.
Available: The intents are fully available and not considered a preview.

Books

Intents asking about books and other written works, such as rating books, adding books to reading lists, or navigating through audio books.

Entity Type	Short Description
Book	A book. These intents let users ask for actions related to books, such as finding books, adding books to reading lists, and rating books.
BookSeries	A named series of books, such as "The Lord of the Rings." These intents let users take actions on a book series, such as adding the books in the series to a reading list.
CreativeWork	A generic kind of creative work, including books, movies, photographs, software programs, and so on. These intents let users make requests related to any type of creative work.
CreativeWorkSection	A section or part of a creative work, such as a page or chapter. These intents let users specify a particular part of a book, movie, page, or other section.
ReadingList	A list made up of books or other written creative works that a user wants to collect in one place, such as a summer reading list or a "read later" list. These intents let users make requests about reading lists, such as creating lists and adding or removing items on the lists.

(Back up to Built-in Intent Categories)

Calendar

Intents for asking about calendars and schedules, such as asking about upcoming events, adding events to a calendar, and looking up events such as birthdays.

Entity Type	Short Description
Calendar	A calendar that contains a list of events. These intents let users make requests related to calendars, such as reading back events, looking up events, and adding items to a calendar.
Event	An event happening at a certain time and location, such as a meeting, concert, lecture, or festival. These intents let users make requests related to events, such as adding an event to a calendar, or looking up details of an event.

(Back up to Built-in Intent Categories)

Cinema Showtimes

Intents for asking about show times and events at movie theaters.

Entity Type	Short Description
ScreeningEvent	A screening of a movie or other video. These intents let users make requests related to particular screening events, such as asking for the show time for an event, asking what movies are playing, and asking what movie theaters are playing a particular movie.

(Back up to Built-in Intent Categories)

General

Intents for other requests that don't fall into any of the more specific categories.

Entity Type	Short Description
CreativeWork	A generic kind of creative work, including books, movies, photographs, software programs, and so on. These intents let users make requests related to any type of creative work.
CreativeWorkSection	A section or part of a creative work, such as a page or chapter. These intents let users specify a particular part of a book, movie, page, or other section.
Thing	A generic object. These intents let users make requests that are not related to any specific object or entity, such as requests to pause or continue an action.

(Back up to Built-in Intent Categories)

Local Search

Intents for asking about local businesses and locations, such as operating hours, phone numbers, and travel times to locations and businesses. For example, users can ask when a particular business is open, or ask for the phone number of a business.

Entity Type	Short Description
LocalBusiness	A particular physical business or branch of an organization, like a restaurant, a medical practice, or a store. These intents let users ask for information about businesses such as the location, contact information, or opening hours.

(Back up to Built-in Intent Categories)

Music

Intents for asking about music, such as asking about songs, playlists, and music libraries.

Entity Type	Short Description
Catalog	A collection or library offered and curated by an organization or collected and organized by an individual. These intents let users ask about collections of books or music.
MusicCreativeWork	The broad category of creative works that are musical in nature, includes songs, albums, playlists, and other items. These intents let users request actions related to musical works, such as adding songs to a library, controlling playback of musical works, and looking up information about musical works.
MusicGroup	A musical group, such as a band, an orchestra, or a choir. This can also represent a solo musician. These intents let users request actions related to a music group, such as "liking" a group, finding songs by a group, or asking about the members of a group.
MusicPlaylist	A collection of music tracks in playlist form. These intents let users make requests to manipulate playlists by adding, removing, and choosing items.
MusicRecording	A music recording (track), usually a single song. These intents let users ask for specific information about songs, such as the artist who performs the song, the genre of the song, or other information.
Musician	A person or group that performs music. These intents let users request actions related to musicians, such as asking to rate or "like" a musician.
PlaybackMode	Represents modes related to playback, such as shuffle and loop. These intents let users ask to turn these modes on and off.
Singer	A person who sings, either as a solo performer or as part of a group. These intents let users request actions related to singers, such as asking who sings a particular song.

(Back up to Built-in Intent Categories)

Video

Intents for asking about television and other types of video media. For example, users can ask for information about episodes of a TV show.

Entity Type	Short Description
Actor	A person who performs in live or recorded performances such as movies, television, or on stage. These intents let users ask about actors.
CreativeWork	A generic kind of creative work, including books, movies, photographs, software programs, and so on. These intents let users make requests related to any type of creative work.
Episode	An episode for TV, radio, video game, or other media which can be part of a series or season. These intents let users request actions related to episodes, such as starting playback of a particular episode or searching for a particular episode.
TVSeason	Season during which a series of related episodes are broadcast on TV broadcast or delivered online. These intents let users request actions for a TV season, such asking to start playback of a particular season for a show.
TVSeries	A series of related television episodes. These intents let users request actions for a TV series, such asking to start playback of a particular series.
VideoCreativeWork	A creative work that includes video and possibly audio, such as movies, television shows, and video clips. These intents let users request actions related to video works, such as adding videos to a library or watchlist, controlling playback of videos, and looking up information about video works.
VideoPlaylist	A collection of video creative works, such as a list of shows to watch. These intents let users make requests to manipulate video playlists by adding, removing, and choosing items.

(Back up to Built-in Intent Categories)

Weather

Intents for requesting weather reports and forecasts.

Entity Type	Short Description
WeatherForecast	A weather forecast. These intents let users ask for general weather forecasts, as well as more specific questions about specific weather conditions.

(Back up to Built-in Intent Categories)

Standard Built-in Intents

The standard intents are used for common, general actions such as stopping, canceling, asking for help, and navigating screen-based content. Unlike all of the other built-in intents in the library, these intents do not have a signature derived from actions, entity types, and properties. These intents have names such as AMAZON.HelpIntent, AMAZON.StopIntent, AMAZON.CancelIntent, and AMAZON.PreviousIntent.

Note: The standard intents cannot use slots.

For the full list, see Standard Built-in Intents.

(Back up to Built-in Intent Categories)

Built-in Intent Library Documentation

See all available slot types in the Slot Type Reference.

Learn more about using the built-in intent library:

Learn more about building your voice interface:

The built-in intent library incorporates material from Schema.org, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (version 3.0) (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. For questions, please contact us.

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Last updated: Nov 22, 2023