Why...?
Why did you write this skill?
This project was born in the early days of the Amazon Echo. I received one as a gift and wanted to find something for it to do. I didn't have any "smart home" devices, and didn't have much of a use for it besides listening to music. There weren't very many skills at the time so functionality wasn't great.
I started looking for a way to control Kodi with Alexa and found a project that had a good start, but since it only had 3 intents, it was very limited in what it could do. So I forked it and started work expanding the functionality. I started the project over a weekend and it has grown significantly from there.
My initial release cleaned up some of the original work, added 20 more intents, and had a tutorial about how to host and setup the skill yourself. I received a lot of response from this and over the course of the next few years the project now has over 130 intents with support in English and German, and there are over 10 contributors to the source code. It has undergone several refactorings, and now is using the Flask-Ask framework.
You can view the source code for all the projects on my Github account here.
It is provided as a free service, and will always remain free.
Why can't I install these from the Alexa app?
Unfortunately, as of this moment, we cannot simply ship the skills normally as other skills on Amazon's skill marketplace. I went to an extensive amount of work to build a web service that accomplished what these skills do but would allow multiple users so this process wouldn't be necessary. Unfortunately, Amazon has denied the skill certification due to the ignorant belief that it would be used for "piracy".
Why are there so many steps?
The process of setting up these skills may seem daunting at first, but the reward -- we feel -- is well worth the effort. If you carefully follow the directions to the tee, you might find it is not as complicated as it seems. Over the last few years, we have diligently tried to improve the access and ease of instructions. We're always actively searching for easier ways to do things. We have made every effort to here to provide clear and concise documentation to allow you to make use of this skill now.
Do try to keep in mind that this is a hobby project for the developers -- we do not get paid in any way.
Why the "strange" names?
The Kanzi and Koko skills are named after the famous primates Kanzi the bonobo and Koko the gorilla.