Programmatically enable skill for testing

You can test skill invocation, and simulate skill execution, using these REST APIs:

The Skill Invocation API enables skill developers to invoke their skills for testing purposes.

The Skill Simulation API enables skill developers to simulate skill execution.

The Skill Invocation API and the Skill Simulation API must be used for testing purposes only.

See also: Alexa Skills Kit Command Line Interface and Alexa Skill Management API Overview

And https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/testing-an-alexa-skill.

Just in case you find this useful, I have been creating a way of testing skills, building upon Skill Invocation API and Skill Simulation API, which greatly simplifies the way you can specify the conversations (using BookMyTrip as an example).

class AlexaSkillManagementClientTests(AlexaSkillTest):

    def test_book_my_trip_reserve_a_car(self):
        skill_name = 'BookMyTripSkill'
        intent = 'BookCar'
        conversation = [
            {'slot': None, 'text': 'ask book my trip to reserve a car'},
            {'slot': 'CarType', 'text': 'midsize'},
            {'slot': 'PickUpCity', 'text': 'buenos aires'},
            {'slot': 'PickUpDate', 'text': 'tomorrow'},
            {'slot': 'ReturnDate', 'text': 'five days from now'},
            {'slot': 'DriverAge', 'text': 'twenty five'},
            {'slot': None, 'prompt': 'Confirmation', 'text': 'yes'}
        ]
        self.conversation_text(skill_name, intent, conversation, verbose=True)

which when run, produces something like this

If you want to know more visit the github project lex-bot-tester.

I also wrote a brief article on Medium explaining it a bit: Testing Alexa Skills — The grail quest

Hope it helps.