Posted Messages

Testing Console

Fill in your account details and click "Post". Refer to the Alexa app for more info.
Required
Optional
Actions

If you just want to post messages using your browser, once you have configured your user identifier and secret using the form above, you can use this smaller version of the testing console to just post messages.
Note that it uses local storage for your user identifier and secret which you can change or delete using this console.

Reference

Use this endpoint: https://l7kjk6dx49.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/prod/postedmessage

The endpoint expects a POST with a JSON payload with the following structure:

{
            text: "string: the message contents, currently limited to 200 characters",
            userId: "string: your user id",
            timestamp: "empty string or int",
            hash: "string: hex digest of (timestamp + ':' + secret),
            source: 'api',
            sticky: int UTC timestamp in seconds (optional),
            expiry: int UTC timestamp in seconds (optional),
            key: "string: optional"
}
userId
This is the identified used by ASK. See the Alexa app when enabling the skill if you don't know it.
hash
This is still work in progress. If you decide to include a timestamp, then you need to compute an MD5 hash of the concatenation of timestamp + ':' + secret, otherwise, provide always an empty timestamp and use the utility below to compute a hash
sticky
The current skill will delete messages from your board after they are read. If you want a message to be kept in the board for longer, provide a UTC timestamp and the message will be kept until then
expiry
The messages are always read in the order they are received. If you want a message to be discarded after some date, provide a UTC timestamp and it will not be included after that date
key
Messages are always queued unless you want to actually replace an existing message. You can assign keys to messages and any upcoming message with a key matching an existing message will replace it.

Note that you can open you Alexa app from your browser at http://alexa.amazon.com where you can easily copy and paste your secret and userId

In my setup I have two temperature monitors with two different keys that send an update every hour. Using two different keys and having a sticky for one hour means that I will always get and I will only get the two more recent readings.

If you do a GET to the endpoint you will get a the feed for the flash briefing of my tests

Utilities

If for some reason you cannot compute MD5 hashes, currently (may change at any time), you can just send an empty timestamp. Use this to compute the required hash given your secret for an empty or any arbitrary timestamp.