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Add option to disable skill timeout while developing

Provide an option to disable skill timeout while developing Alexa apps. This would allow code to be debugged from end to end without receiving "The requested skill took too long to respond". It is not currently possible to step through code and review the output in the simulator without sending multiple requests.

It would be incredibly valuable to allow the timeout to be optional while a skill is being developed.

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Patrick McMorrow shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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  • Jacob Weber commented  ·   ·  Report

    I think you're referring to the timeout while Alexa waits for your endpoint (e.g. Lambda) to respond, rather than the timeout while Alexa waits for a user's voice response, right? If so, agreed.

    I'd like this even for production skills....sometimes you need to retrieve data that takes a long time.

    Right now it seems to time out after 8 seconds. Using a progressive response to say something like "please wait" doesn't extend the timeout.

    I'd also like to be able to change the response when it DOES time out, which is currently "The requested skill did not provide a valid response".

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    I've been developing Alexa skill for over two years now. I have submitted any of them to the certified, however my alexa setup can do some pretty spectacular things. Specifically when it comes to home security. I leverage Microsoft Azures Face Api to allow Alexa to describe people at my front door. Works Fantastically. However, I'm constantly coding around the 10 second timeout feature. This drives me nuts. Please allow some kind of parameter to set the timeout to either 10 seconds, or 12 seconds. This would allow my response to gather all the information needed, instead of having Alexa come back and say something like "I'm sorry, I may have missed something, can I check again?" (like a stupid bot, instead of the highly intelligent AI I know it can be).

    Thanks! I love Alexa, and I look forward to her eating Cortona here in Canada, so I can finally control my Xbox One natively instead of my custom skill.

    Great Thanks!