Alexa Echo Dot - ASK skill problems - alexa-skills-kit

Question

I'm tying to make a simple test custom Alexa Skill, but I'm stuck and I'm not sure what the problem is. Maybe someone more experienced know what I'm missing?
Invocation Name
home system
Intent Schema
{
"intents": [
{
"intent": "AMAZON.HelpIntent",
"slots": []
},
{
"intent": "TestIntent",
"slots": [
{"name": "test", "type": "AMAZON.NUMBER"}
]
}
]
}
Sample Utterances
TestIntent set state {test}
TestIntent add state
I have written my own little python server on my own self hosted server, I already have a working news flash skill on the same system. I have spend plenty of time looking at the documentation, reading tutorials and I looks like I have done what I'm supposed to do.
The result I get is this:
A LaunchRequest works, both in the Service Simulator and on the Echo. It triggers a HTTP POST with the expected JSON, and I get the expected voice reply.
But the IntentRequest only works from the Service Simulator, it never works on the Echo. I say for example "alexa home system set state eight", no requests are made to my server, the echo just makes a sound and that's all.
I have no idea how to debug this, the skill is a US skill and my Echo is in US mode. I have tried to set the endpoint in both Europe and North America. Tried different trigger words, different slots, no slots ... and I have of course checked under Settings -> History to make sure that the device understood me correctly.
Any idea what to try next? How to debug this?

Answer 1

I found the problem, it was a classic PEBCAK (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard) problem.
I had missed that I had to be much more precise how to invoke an intent (a single sentence that contains both the trigger word and intent in one go). A example of valid and working examples are:
Alexa, ask home system to set state nine
Alexa, set state twelve using home system
Alexa, tell home system set state one
I realised this when I used the alternative 2-step invoking, and realized that it worked. It had to be the way I invoked the skill, not the backend:
Alexa, open home system
(Alexa responds, and listens for the command)
Set state to eight
(Intent triggered, Alexa responds)
The first request above is the LaunchRequest
The LaunchRequest responds with shouldEndSession: false, if not the session will end. That's maps to question(...) in my code.
There are plenty of more ways to trigger the skills, a full list see this page: https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/supported-phrases-to-begin-a-conversation (scroll down to the tables)
Finally thank you u-gen for the feedback, bst was a interesting project (never tried it), guess it can be really useful if you uses a hosted solution like lambda. But thanks to the docs I found flask-ask, a project that simplified my code.
Finally, the python part of my test project if someone else like to try it out.
#!/usr/bin/env python
from flask import Flask, render_template
from flask_ask import Ask
from flask_ask import statement, question, convert_errors
app = Flask(__name__)
ask = Ask(app, '/ask/')
#app.route('/')
def hello_world():
return 'Hello, World!'
#ask.launch
def launched():
return question('Welcome to Foo')
#ask.intent('TestIntent')
def hello():
return statement('Hello, world')
#ask.session_ended
def session_ended():
return "", 200
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run(debug=True, host="0.0.0.0", threaded=True)