A few weeks ago, while writing a shell script, I could not recall the command I needed to do something. As I was sitting at my desk trying to remember it I thought to myself that it would be great if I could just ask my Amazon Alexa for the answer.
After pondering that for a moment I came to the conclusion that such a skill probably could exist. Several hours of reading through APIs and tutorials later I emerged with a plan and started to sling code. Now I am excited to release that creation, the Command Wizard skill.
Command Wizard is an Amazon Alexa skill to help you lookup information related to Linux commands. Its like a voice-enabled man page. Not sure what the grep command does, just ask. Want to know the common options for the cut command, you can ask that too! You can also ask for a tip or to learn about a new command. Here is a sample:
Examples
Here are examples of things you can ask Command Wizard:
"Alexa, ask command wizard about the cut command"
"Alexa, ask command wizard how I number the lines of a file"
"Alexa, ask command wizard about the options for the file command"
"Alexa, ask command wizard for a tip"
"Alexa, ask command wizard to teach me a new command"
Supported Commands
Command Wizard currently supports over 50 commands!
Conclusion
Amazon really has done a great job with the Alexa SDK to make it easy to create a skill. I originally started to code Command Wizard in Node.js, but then switched to Python because I am more familiar with the language. Checkout Amazon's Steps to Build a Custom Skill page if you want to learn more.
If you don't have an Amazon Alexa (Echo), I have included a few links below where you can pick one up (Note - These are affiliate links).
Wow! So useful