Typescript deploy to lambda about ask-toolkit-for-vscode

[nikhilym]

Hey @andrelandgraf , sorry for the late response. So as you may already know, the Alexa Console built-in repository is just the normal AWS Lambda function over an AWS CodeCommit repository for the skill, handled by the Hosted skills service. AWS Lambda doesn't currently support Typescript out of the box, and the developers are expected to build the .ts files to .js files before uploading to the service. This is the reason why you would still need to upload the dist directory containing the js files.

Additionally, the default handler location for the AWS Lambda function for the hosted skills service is index.handler and at the moment, that service doesn't provide a way to configure this handler through the tools. This is the reason why you would have to re-import the handler from dist/index and export it back again, in your workaround. You can also configure your tsconfig.json to output the built files to the same lambda folder, and hence not do such workarounds. However, that would add both js and ts files in the same folder, leading to confusion and maintainability issues. I think your workaround is a good one, until the hosted skill service provides a way to configure the handler location.

As for the sample skill, it seems to have been built on the ask cli v1 structure. If so, skill devs can use this migration guide, to convert it to the ask cli v2 structure, which is compatible with the ASK Toolkit vscode extension. Hope this helps.

I am going ahead and closing this issue, considering you are unblocked at the moment. Please create an issue in case you have further questions or have any feedback on the extension. Thanks.

[andrelandgraf]

I was able to make it work now.

• I added the dist folder to git and deploy it to lambda using Alexa Skills Toolkit
• I added a index.js inside lambda/ which just looks like follows:

const handler = require('./dist/index')

exports.handler = handler

Is this how TypeScript is supposed to work with Alexa Skills Toolkit or is there a better way to configure it?

[andrelandgraf]

Thanks @nikhilym for the in-depth explanations! This cleared up a lot of assumptions I made. Great to hear that you recommend my workaround for now.