Create google spreadsheet with node js

Question

I want to create a google docs sheet within my alexa skill, that is written in Node.js. I have the enabled the google API, I set the required scope in amazon dev portal, I actually can log into the google account (so the first few lines of the posted code seem to work), and I do not get any error messages. But the sheet is never created.

Now the main question would be whether anyone can see the problem in my code.

But I would also have an additional question I would be very interested in: since I use account linking, I can not try that code in the Alexa test simulator, but have to upload it to Alexa before running it, where I can not get any debug messages. How does one best debug in that way?

if (this.event!== undefined)
{
 if (this.event.session.user.accessToken === undefined) 
 {
    this.emit(':tellWithLinkAccountCard','to start using this skill, please use the companion app to authenticate on Google');
    return;
  }
}
else
{

    this.emit(':tellWithLinkAccountCard','to start using this skill, please use the companion app to authenticate on Google');
    return;
}
var oauth2Client = new google.auth.OAuth2('***.apps.googleusercontent.com', '***', '***');

oauth2Client.setCredentials({
     access_token: this.event.session.user.accessToken,
     refresh_token: this.event.session.user.refreshToken
});

var services = google.sheets('v4');
services.spreadsheets.create({
  resource : {properties:{title:"MySheet"}},
  auth       : oauth2Client
}, function(err,response) {
  if( err ) {
    console.log('Error : unable to create file, ' + err);
    return;
  } else {
    console.dir(response);
  }
});

Edit: I tried just the lower part manually, and could create a spreadsheet. So the problem seems indeed to be retrieving the access token with "this.event.session.user.accessToken" .

Answer 1

I find it is much easier to debug issues like this using unit tests. This allows rerunning code locally. I use NPM and Mocha and it makes it easier to debug both custom and smart home skills. There is quite a bit of information available online about how to use NPM and Mocha to test Nodejs code, so I won't repeat that here. For example, refer to the Big Nerd Ranch article. It makes it a bit more complex to setup your project initially, but you'll be glad you did every time you hit a bug.

In this example, I would divide the code in half:

1. The first half would handle the request coming from Alexa and extract the token.
2. The second half would use the token to create the Google doc. I would also pass the name of the doc to create.

I would test the 2nd part first, passing in a valid token (for testing only) and a test doc name. When that is working, at least you'd know that the doc creation code was working, and any issues would have to be with the token or how you're getting it.

Once that was working, I would then create a test for the first part. I would us a hardcoded JSON object to pass in as the 'event', with event.session.user.accesToken set to a the working test token used in the first test:

'use strict';

var token = '<valid token obtained from google account>';

let testEvent = {
  'session': {
    'user': {
      'accessToken':  token
    }
  }
}