Goals

A tiny configuration required to be done first.

• edit
• check

Prerequisites

You know the general Prerequisites (step 1).

Creating the input_text entity

When creating your text helper you have two choices, using the visual interface provided by home assistant or editing the configuration.yaml file of home assistant. Both will work, choose what you feel more comfortable with.

Visual interface

Note: Using the visual interface won't allow you to set a initial value for the text helper. It shouldn't be an issue but if any issue happens you can start by looking if there is any value in the helper.

Some extra details and notes:

• Translate the text to your language to get a smooth experience.
• Use the Developer Tools to reload INPUT TEXTS.

With your home assistant instance open:

• Go to Settings
• Select Devices & Services
• In the top navigation bar click in Helpers
• Create a new text helper with the name alexa_actionable_notification and max length of 255
• Save the new text helper
• Now open the helper you just created and input the following value {"text": "This is a test of the alexa actionable notifications skill. Did it work?", "event": "actionable.skill.test", "suppress_confirmation": "false"}

In the configuration.yaml file

Make sure to install it i.e. into /config/configuration.yaml.

input_text:
  alexa_actionable_notification:
    name: Alexa Actionable Notification Holder
    max: 255
    initial: '{"text": "This is a test of the alexa actionable notifications skill. Did it work?", "event": "actionable.skill.test", "suppress_confirmation": "false"}'

Available options

Option	Type	Allowed Values	Description
text	string		The text to be spoken by alexa
event	string		The event to trigger after alexa gets a response from the user
suppress_confirmation	boolean		If it should suppress the "Okay" after every request

Checking success

Go to Developer Tools > STATES and search for it.

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Head to the next step: Alexa Talking to Home Assistant (The Skill)

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