Alexa ↔ Home Assistant Assist bridge — let your Echo ask questions and route the answers into Assist

foXaCe · July 4, 2026, 8:52pm

Hi everyone

I wanted a way for Home Assistant to make my Echo devices proactively ask a question — "You're turning off the TV and the shutters are still open, should I close them?" — and then answer with a simple "yes" / "no" (or free speech), with the reply handled by my own HA automations through Assist.

The native Alexa smart-home integration can't do that: it only understands Amazon's fixed grammar, and it can't ask + listen. So I built a tiny custom Alexa skill that bridges the two. It's basically Alexa Actionable Notifications, but on top of Assist — open, unlimited number of answers, and 100 % driven by conversation-triggered automations.

Repo:** GitHub - foXaCe/alexa-ha-assist-bridge: Alexa custom skill bridging Echo devices to Home Assistant Assist: proactive questions, yes/no + custom intents, whisper mode · GitHub

What it can do

HA-initiated questions — an automation makes an Echo speak a question and keep the mic open.
Yes / No answers routed into conversation.process → any automation with a conversation trigger reacts.
Custom intents / free speech — say anything after opening the skill, it goes straight to Assist.
Whisper mode — questions can be whispered (<amazon:effect name="whispered">) for discreet late-night prompts.

How it works

Home Assistant                         Alexa
──────────────                         ─────
script.poser_question_alexa
  ├─ writes the question (JSON) to
  │  input_text.assist_alexa_question
  └─ toggles input_boolean.declencher_...   (exposed to Alexa)
                                        │
                                        ▼  (Alexa Routine)
                              "open my assistant"  ──► Skill LaunchRequest
                                                        ├─ reads the question from HA
                                                        ├─ speaks it (optionally whispered)
                                                        └─ keeps the mic open
     conversation.process  ◄──  you say "yes" / "no" / …
     (your conversation-trigger automation runs and answers)

Because Amazon won't let HA make an Echo ask + listen on its own, an Alexa Routine (trigger = the exposed input_boolean, action = Custom → "open my assistant") launches the skill when HA raises the flag. HA clears the pending question after ~25 s, so the skill only makes one fast call.

Setup (full details in the README)

Home Assistant — an input_text helper (the pending question), an input_boolean (the trigger, exposed to Alexa), one script that fills them, and one conversation-triggered automation per answer.
Alexa Developer Console — create an Alexa-hosted (Python) Custom skill, paste the interaction model + the skill code, set your HA_URL and a long-lived token.
Alexa app — a Routine that opens the skill when the input_boolean turns on.

The repo ships the skill code, the interaction model, and ready-to-use HA examples (helpers + script + a full "TV off → close the shutters?" flow).

Language note

The interaction model and the spoken strings are in French (that's my setup). For any other language, just adapt:

skill-package/interactionModels/custom/fr-FR.json → your locale + invocation name + intent samples (rename the file, e.g. en-US.json).
The response strings inside lambda/lambda_function.py ("J'écoute.", "Désolé…", etc.).
HA_LANG = "fr" → your Assist language.
The example conversation commands ("ferme les volets" → "close the shutters").

Everything else (the flow, the helpers, the Routine) is language-agnostic.

Dev gotcha that cost me hours

In the ASK SDK, your handler parameter MUST be named handler_input (and the exception handler (handler_input, exception)). The framework calls handlers by keyword, so def can_handle(self, h) raises TypeError → the skill returns an invalid response and Alexa just says "there was a problem with the requested skill" with no useful log. Renaming the parameter fixed it instantly.