I would love this as a feature. They should default to off and I can turn them on.
For 2. do you have to manually exclude each entity that is not needed or does everything that is not specified under include: get excluded?
Also I have submitted a feature request for that toggle so get voting 
I find this frustrating too, anything that gets created in Home Assistant seems to automatically get added to Alexa then you have to manualy disable them under ‘Manage Entities’ and also manually delete them one at a time in the Alex App.
Another option is to logon to the Alexa website where there is a delete all devices option then tell Alex to rediscover devices. I do this once in a while to flush out all the unwanted/duplicate/junk devices that accumulate in Alexa.
I certainly think that having the toggle default to off for new devices under ‘Manage Entities’ would be a great improvement.
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Please add this. Since I’m paying for this service I’m going to be blunt. Adding every single device by default is stupid. It unexpectedly broke voice control of logitech harmony because Alexa could see several devices with the name directv.
The WAF is seriously damaged by this BS. Try explaining to the Wife that the reason she couldn’t change the channel, while both her hands were tied up feeding an infant, was due to HA deciding to add 10 devices unexpectedly to alexa.
Yes this is still happening and quite annoying, I can’t see this as being a difficult feature to implement.
It’s already implemented. It’s been implemented for ~5 years now.
non-cloud users
smart_home:
filter:
include_entities:
- switch.a
- switch.b
... etc...
cloud users
cloud:
alexa:
filter:
include_entities:
- switch.a
- switch.b
... etc...
That will force it to only include entities that are in that list.
See my post above.
This is the default behavior to get alexa & cloud to work with the base configuration. I.e. no user interaction.
This is kind of ironic. You state this is a design decision to get it to work with the base configuration with no user interaction. Basically a usability feature to make it easier for novices to get up and running quick. Yet the only way to get this thing to stop breaking alexa voice control on its own whenever there is a change is for the user to use a very non user friendly means to filter devices that they do not want. Wouldn’t it make sense to just program the ability to STOP HA from adding any new devices or a setting that switches between opt-in vs opt-out?
Don’t name multiple things the same thing. 
How is Alexa supposed to know let alone HA? Many people have managed to adapt to this configuration when their system gets large.
And how would this work? It’s it just going to magically know when to stop adding? What happens when you want to add another device 8 months down the road? How’s it going to know which device to add after you told it to stop. You going to flick this magical switch and it’ll add 8 months of entities and you’ll be back at square one… upset and needing to configure everything manually.
Conversely, a default inclusion method is even worse. Now EVERYONE has to configure their system instead of a small handful.
The absence of this magical switch is not to upset everyone. It’s because the feasibility behind it does not make sense. What does make sense is you configuring it when you need to remove entities. That’s why there’s inclusion and exclusion filters.
This already exists. It’s the filters. It can’t be a simple flag, see reason above.
opt-in
cloud:
alexa:
filter:
include_entities:
- media_player.xyz
.. etc...
include_domains:
- light
- switch
... etc..
opt-out
cloud:
alexa:
filter:
exclude_entities:
- media_player.xyz
.. etc...
exclude_domains
- light
- switch
... etc..
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Nice one and thanks for this I was not aware 
Tried it there and it works along with this showing now
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I don’t know why your tone is hostile, so please act like an adult. I urge you to adjust your post and remove the needless insults as it’s against the coc. Thanks.
And No, I do not speak for the core team. I’m here simply pointing out that this feature already exists. In the future this ability will be expanded to the UI, but for now you have to use yaml.
You started with the hostility.
And who did I insult?
Please enlighten me, how was anything I said hostile?
Every post you’ve made in this topic has been condescending and dismissive of the issues others have brought up.
If your first post would have read like this at the start, we wouldn’t be here now.
It’s almost like text doesn’t convey meaning. Maybe you should give the benefit of the doubt toward strangers and assume they mean well instead of assuming they are being condescending. All of my responses are to just convey information. And for the record my first reply gave the exact information you just said “wasn’t hostile”. I really think you just wanted an argument.
This is condescending and dismissive.
And this:
Ah yes, its dismissive providing the answer. 
I’m done here, seems like you moved on. Good luck.
@JakeK please refrain from channeling your frustration with Alexa at our forums or community, people are spending their time trying to help!
If you go to Cloud configuration panel → Alexa card → Manage entities you can pick the domains to automatically include/exclude via the “Manage Domains” button and choose to override settings on a per-entity basis.
Does unexposed domains still allow a previously exposed entity in the cloud service? In my tests it did not unless something has changed recently. Example I have multiple media_player devices related to DirecTV. I had only one exposed since it was the only one that Alexa could utilize. A change somewhere else in the system somehow affected the other media_players and caused all of them to be reset and freshly exposed. I do not know what change occured that caused that, and if it was precipitated by something I did. That said directv was only the most recent example and it just happened to break other functions. Often my zwave network will accumulate phantom entities, mostly sensors on fringe devices.