Stream Step (Alexa only)

Stream Step

The Stream Step allows you to unlock functionality of streaming longer-form audio on your voice assistant (over 240 seconds and/or live streams).

Note: The Stream Step is currently only available on Alexa Assistants only.

The Stream step intakes long-form audio stream URLs or hosted audio URLs/assets. You can optionally set your audio asset to play on loop.

Using the Stream vs Audio Step

The Audio step should be used in the majority of cases versus the Stream step. The Stream step should be used for long-form audio content such as livestreams, podcasts and any other content over 2 minutes in length.

Note: On the back-end, The Stream Step is considered external to your voice app (Skill or Action) and configuration of the content or in-app actions are limited to the Approved Stream Actions.

Approved Stream Actions

As the Stream Step is considered external to the experience, only certain Intents are able to be invoked whilst playing and/or streaming. The approved Intents are Play, Pause, Next and Previous.

Note: On Alexa, if any other Intents are invoked while the Stream is active, the Skill will end. This is a restriction defined and set by Amazon Alexa, across all skill developers.

You are able to connect Next and Previous to other components of your assistant to guide the audio experience.

Setting Visuals for the Stream

Optionally, when your stream begins playing, you can define and set the visual elements that will be displayed on screen-based devices. This includes a stream Title, Description, Icon and Background Image.