alexa-ourgroceries-sync

Unofficial OurGroceries Alexa Shopping List Synchronization Skill

Disclaimer

The is an unofficial skill meaning it should only be used for personal usage. I do not have any affiliations with OurGroceries or Amazon.

Introduction

This skill provides Alexa shopping list synchronization with a specific OurGroceries list. This is an addon to the official skill which doesn't support list synchronization as of yet.

It is leveraging the Alexa Skills Kit Command Line Interface (ASK CLI) to streamline the deployment process.

Prerequisites

Alexa Skills Kit CLI with Amazon AWS and Developer Accounts

You need an AWS account and an Amazon developer account to create an Alexa Skill.

In order to use the ASK CLI features to automatically deploy and manage your Lambda skill, ensure that you have AWS credentials set up with the appropriate permissions on the computer to which you are installing ASK CLI, as described in Set Up Credentials for an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Account.

You will have to install the latest ASK CLI, and then configure it:

npm install -g ask-cli
ask configure

By default, the ASK CLI deploys the skill resources in the us-east-1 region. You will need to change your deploy region based on the skill language you are planning to use. You should refer to the table below, based on the smart home multi-languages development guidelines:

Skill Language	Endpoint Region	Deploy Region
English (CA), English (US)	North America	us-east-1
English (UK)	Europe	eu-west-1
English (IN)	India	eu-west-1
English (AU)	Far East	us-west-2

To change your deploy region, update the awsRegion skill infrastructure user config parameter in ask-resources.json.

Login with Amazon Security Profile

In order to fulfill the skill account linking requirement, you need to create a Login with Amazon (LWA) security profile and take a note of the associated OAuth2 credentials. See this post to set it up for your private skill. Fill the Create Security Profile form as follow:

• Security Profile Name: alexa-ourgroceries-sync
• Security Profile Description: Unofficial OurGroceries Alexa Shopping List Synchronization Skill
• Consent Privacy Notice URL: https://www.ourgroceries.com/privacy
• Consent Logo Image: Logo

Once created, take note of the OAuth2 credentials and update the Web Settings as below. The Allowed Return URL should include your vendor ID.

• Allowed Return URLs: https://pitangui.amazon.com/api/skill/link/<vendorId>

Deployment

1. Configure the deployment parameters in ask-resources.json:

   Parameter	Description
   OurGroceriesUsername	Your OurGroceries account username.
   OurGroceriesPassword	Your OurGroceries account password.
   OurGroceriesShoppingList	Your OurGroceries shopping list name to synchronize. (Case sensitive)
   AlexaShoppingList	The Alexa shopping list name if you don't want to use the standard list. (Optional)

2. Deploy the skill and all AWS resources in one step:

   ask deploy

3. Setup the skill account linking:

   1. Create the skill account linking request file as accountLinking.json, adding your LWA Security Profile OAuth2 credentials:

      {
        "accountLinkingRequest": {
          "skipOnEnablement": "false",
          "type": "AUTH_CODE",
          "authorizationUrl": "https://www.amazon.com/ap/oa",
          "accessTokenUrl": "https://api.amazon.com/auth/o2/token",
          "accessTokenScheme": "HTTP_BASIC",
          "clientId": "<clientId>",
          "clientSecret": "<clientSecret>",
          "scopes": [
            "profile"
          ]
        }
      }

   2. Update the skill account linking information, using the skill ID displayed in the deploy step:

      ask smapi update-account-linking-info -s <skillId> --account-linking-request file:accountLinking.json

4. Enable the skill on your Alexa account:

   • In your Alexa app, go to More > Skills & Games page
   • Select the "OurGroceries List Sync" skill under Your Skills > Dev tab
   • Tap "Enable to Use" and go through the account linking process
   • Grant the Lists Read/Write Access permissions

5. That should be it! Now, just say to your favorite Echo device: "Alexa, add milk and eggs to my shopping list". Both items should be added right away to your OurGroceries' shopping list. Changes made to that list, on the OurGroceries side, are synchronized back to the Alexa's list, every 30 minutes. It is important to note that when first enabling the skill, the Alexa shopping list will be updated to mirror the OurGroceries one, potentially removing any items that aren't on the latter list.