Update Alexa player provider by alams154 · Pull Request #3167 · music-assistant/server

alams154 · 2026-02-15T00:26:38Z

This PR should bring some improvements to the Alexa Player Provider and help bring it more in line with the current state of the Alexa skill.

Change default port to 5000 to match the default Alexa skill port
Add api_request function for generic endpoints
Pull metadata that allows for display of metadata on Show devices
Migrate to custom commands in AlexaPy calls since the API calls do not work for APL devices

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR updates the Alexa player provider with several significant changes:

Changes:

Changed default API URL port from 3000 to 5000
Added new API request infrastructure with session management and basic auth support
Refactored playback control methods (stop, play, pause) to use Alexa intents instead of direct API calls
Implemented intent caching mechanism to improve performance
Enhanced metadata handling in play_media method

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music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

Copilot · 2026-02-15T00:32:06Z

music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

+
+
+async def api_request(
+    provider: Any,


The provider parameter is typed as Any, which provides no type safety. Consider using a more specific type such as AlexaProvider or a Protocol that defines the required interface (config.get_value and mass.http_session). This would improve type safety and IDE support.

Please use appropriate type here

Should be the appropriate type now

music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

Copilot

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music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

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MarvinSchenkel · 2026-02-17T09:32:21Z

music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

+    url = f"{api_url.rstrip('/')}/{endpoint.lstrip('/')}"
+
+    mass_session = None
+    try:


I think you can just rely on mass.http_session to be there. No need for all this fallback logic.

Should be removed now

MarvinSchenkel · 2026-02-17T09:34:40Z

music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

-            auth = BasicAuth(str(username), str(password))
-
        stream_url = await self.provider.mass.streams.resolve_stream_url(self.player_id, media)
+        # Prefer the player's current_media (may contain enriched metadata),


Why prefer the current metadata? If MA is playing track A and you request play_media with Track B, the metadata of track B will be in media. I think you should just use media.xxx or "" here ?

I thought that would be the case but when I was testing, media didn't contain relevant metadata. Album and artist were null and title was set to "Music Assistant" and image_url was the Music Assistant logo.

If there is some other field that contains the relevant metadata, I can update the assignments, or if there is a bug in the provider somewhere I could address that.

This is due to flow mode playing as 1 big continuous stream, so play_media is only called once in those cases. If you want rich metadata in flow mode, you need an endpoint on the player side that allows you to just update the metadata. You can implement _on_player_media_updated for this. Have a look at the Airplay or Chromecast provider as an example.

music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

MarvinSchenkel

Could you please update the PR description with the goal? I miss the context to properly review the functional changes of the player commands. What is this PR improving?

Also gave some inline feedback. Please have a look, address the comments and let us know when you want us to have another look by selecting 'Ready for review' again

…totype

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music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

Copilot

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Copilot · 2026-02-17T14:35:07Z

music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

+        state = getattr(self, "state", None)
+        current = getattr(state, "current_media", None) or media


The metadata extraction logic is overly defensive. Since state is always a property on Player instances (inherited from the Player base class), using getattr(self, "state", None) is unnecessary. The code should directly access self.state.current_media as done in other providers (e.g., airplay/player.py:621, roku_media_assistant/player.py:312, sendspin/player.py:550, squeezelite/player.py:354).

Suggested change

state = getattr(self, "state", None)

current = getattr(state, "current_media", None) or media

current = self.state.current_media or media

Copilot · 2026-02-17T14:35:08Z

music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

+        except Exception as exc:  # pylint: disable=broad-except
+            _LOGGER.error("Failed API request to %s: %s", url, exc)
+            raise ActionUnavailable("Failed to connect to the configured API endpoint.")
+
+    async with aiohttp.ClientSession() as session:
+        try:
+            return await _request_with_session(session, method, url, json_data, timeout, auth)
+        except Exception as exc:  # pylint: disable=broad-except
+            _LOGGER.error("Failed API request to %s: %s", url, exc)
+            raise ActionUnavailable("Failed to connect to the configured API endpoint.")


The broad exception handler catches ActionUnavailable exceptions raised by _request_with_session and converts them to a less informative generic message. This loses the detailed error information (status code and response text) from the original exception. Consider catching ActionUnavailable separately and re-raising it to preserve the detailed error message, similar to the pattern used in _load_intents at line 547.

Suggested change

except Exception as exc: # pylint: disable=broad-except

_LOGGER.error("Failed API request to %s: %s", url, exc)

raise ActionUnavailable("Failed to connect to the configured API endpoint.")

async with aiohttp.ClientSession() as session:

try:

return await _request_with_session(session, method, url, json_data, timeout, auth)

except Exception as exc: # pylint: disable=broad-except

_LOGGER.error("Failed API request to %s: %s", url, exc)

raise ActionUnavailable("Failed to connect to the configured API endpoint.")

except ActionUnavailable:

# Preserve detailed ActionUnavailable from _request_with_session

raise

except Exception as exc: # pylint: disable=broad-except

_LOGGER.error("Failed API request to %s: %s", url, exc)

raise ActionUnavailable("Failed to connect to the configured API endpoint.") from exc

async with aiohttp.ClientSession() as session:

try:

return await _request_with_session(session, method, url, json_data, timeout, auth)

except ActionUnavailable:

# Preserve detailed ActionUnavailable from _request_with_session

raise

except Exception as exc: # pylint: disable=broad-except

_LOGGER.error("Failed API request to %s: %s", url, exc)

raise ActionUnavailable("Failed to connect to the configured API endpoint.") from exc

Copilot · 2026-02-17T14:35:08Z

music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

+    async with aiohttp.ClientSession() as session:
+        try:
+            return await _request_with_session(session, method, url, json_data, timeout, auth)
+        except Exception as exc:  # pylint: disable=broad-except
+            _LOGGER.error("Failed API request to %s: %s", url, exc)
+            raise ActionUnavailable("Failed to connect to the configured API endpoint.")


The broad exception handler catches ActionUnavailable exceptions raised by _request_with_session and converts them to a less informative generic message. This loses the detailed error information (status code and response text) from the original exception. Consider catching ActionUnavailable separately and re-raising it to preserve the detailed error message, similar to the pattern used in _load_intents at line 547.

MarvinSchenkel · 2026-02-17T14:39:11Z

music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

+            _LOGGER.error("Failed API request to %s: %s", url, exc)
+            raise ActionUnavailable("Failed to connect to the configured API endpoint.")
+
+    async with aiohttp.ClientSession() as session:


I think this is practically dead code. I cannot think of a reason that mass.http_session is None? Have you encountered this in your development.

MarvinSchenkel · 2026-02-17T14:40:08Z

music_assistant/providers/alexa/__init__.py

+    if mass_session:
+        try:
+            return await _request_with_session(mass_session, method, url, json_data, timeout, auth)
+        except Exception as exc:  # pylint: disable=broad-except


Would be nice to narrow this down to specific Exceptions you are trying to catch here.

I see more of those "catch all" patterns. I think that, in combination with my comments above is all that's left. Then we should be good to merge this :)

Update Alexa player provider

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Merge branch 'dev' into prototype

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Merge branch 'dev' into prototype

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Remove redundant try catch

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MarvinSchenkel marked this pull request as draft February 17, 2026 09:42

alams154 added 2 commits February 17, 2026 13:56

Address PR comments

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Merge remote-tracking branch 'refs/remotes/origin/prototype' into pro…

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…totype

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alams154 and others added 2 commits February 17, 2026 14:28

Remove ActionUnavailble catches

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Merge branch 'music-assistant:dev' into prototype

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MarvinSchenkel marked this pull request as draft February 17, 2026 14:42

alams154 mentioned this pull request Feb 17, 2026

Add flow mode metadata support alams154/music-assistant-alexa-skill-prototype#19

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		state = getattr(self, "state", None)
		current = getattr(state, "current_media", None) or media

	state = getattr(self, "state", None)
	current = getattr(state, "current_media", None) or media
	current = self.state.current_media or media

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alams154 commented Feb 15, 2026 •

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