https://github.com/whoshotu/-BUDDY Buddy - Voice-First Dementia Care Assistant

🎯 MVP Scope

🏗️ Architecture

Patient Device (Alexa)
↓
AWS Lambda (Alexa Skill Handler)
↓ (bidirectional streaming)
Amazon Bedrock Nova 2 Sonic (speech-to-speech)
↓ (tool calls)
Nova 2 Lite Agentic Workflow
↓
┌─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐
│  DynamoDB   │  RAG Query  │ Safety Gate │
│(Knowledge   │ (Patient    │(Escalation  │
│   Base)     │  Context)   │   Logic)    │
└─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┘
↓
Caregiver Alert (SMS/SNS) or Emergency Assist

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisiteshttps://github.com/whoshotu/-BUDDY Buddy - Voice-First Dementia Care Assistant AI-powered voice assistant for dementia patients, built for the Amazon Nova AI Hackathon 2026.

Deploy DynamoDB tables and seed data

Test commands

Safety tests

Required variables (auto-populated by deployment scripts)

DynamoDB tables (auto-populated)

Phase 1: Deploy Infrastructure

# Deploy DynamoDB tables and seed data
./deploy.sh --environment dev --region us-east-1

Phase 2: Deploy Alexa Skill

1. Configure Environment

Copy environment template

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env with your AWS values

nano .env

2. Deploy Lambda Function

./deploy-lambda.sh --environment dev --region us-east-1

3. Configure Alexa Developer Console

4. Test Your Skill

# Test commands
"What do I do this morning?"
"Who is Sarah?"
"What do I take after breakfast?"

# Safety tests
"I'm scared" (repeat 4 times for Level 1 alert)
"I fell down" (immediate Level 2 alert)

Phase 3: Refinement & Monitoring (Optional)

./scripts/deploy-websocket.sh --environment dev --region us-east-1

Deploy CloudWatch monitoring dashboard

./scripts/deploy-monitoring.sh --environment dev --region us-east-1

Phase 4: Caregiver Dashboard

cd src/caregiver-dashboard
npm install
npm run dev

Open

http://localhost:3000

Phase 5: Testing Without Alexa Device

Test Lambda function directly

cd test
./test-lambda.sh

This simulates Alexa requests and tests emergency flow

📁 Project Structure

buddy/
├── docs/                          # Documentation
│   ├── README.md                 # Documentation index
│   ├── EXECUTIVE_SUMMARY.md      # Project overview
│   ├── ARCHITECTURE.md           # System design
│   ├── API.md                    # API reference
│   ├── DEMO_SCRIPT.md           # Demo guide
│   ├── PRD.md                    # Product requirements
│   ├── SETUP.md                  # Installation guide
│   ├── DEPLOYMENT.md            # Deployment strategies
│   ├── EMERGENCY.md             # Emergency features
│   ├── BETA_TESTING.md          # Testing procedures
│   └── DYNAMODB_OPTIMIZATION.md # Performance guide
│
├── infrastructure/               # CloudFormation templates
│   ├── dynamodb.yaml            # DynamoDB tables
│   ├── websocket-api.yaml       # WebSocket API
│   ├── monitoring.yaml          # CloudWatch dashboards
│   └── seed_data.py             # Test data
│
├── src/
│   ├── alexa-skill/             # Lambda function
│   │   ├── index.js
│   │   ├── skill.json
│   │   ├── models/
│   │   ├── package.json
│   │   └── tests/               # Unit tests
│   │
│   ├── caregiver-dashboard/     # React web interface
│   │   ├── src/
│   │   ├── package.json
│   │   └── README.md
│   │
│   └── nova-sonic-websocket/    # Advanced speech-to-speech
│       ├── index.js
│       ├── test-client.html
│       └── README.md
│
├── scripts/                      # Deployment scripts
│   ├── deploy.sh
│   ├── deploy-iam.sh
│   ├── deploy-lambda.sh
│   ├── deploy-websocket.sh
│   ├── deploy-monitoring.sh
│   └── verify.sh
│
├── test/                         # Test suite
│   ├── test-lambda.sh
│   └── test-lambda.js
│
├── demo/                         # Demo materials
└── README.md                     # Main project README

🔧 Environment Configuration

# Required variables (auto-populated by deployment scripts)
AWS_REGION=us-east-1
ENVIRONMENT=dev
ROLE_ARN=arn:aws:iam::YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID:role/buddy-lambda-role
SNS_TOPIC_ARN=arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID:buddy-alerts-dev
LAMBDA_ARN=arn:aws:lambda:us-east-1:YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID:function:buddy-alexa-skill-dev

# DynamoDB tables (auto-populated)
CAREGIVERS_TABLE=BuddyCaregivers-dev
PATIENTS_TABLE=BuddyPatients-dev
ASSIGNMENTS_TABLE=BuddyAssignments-dev
LOGS_TABLE=BuddyConversationLogs-dev

🧪 Testing

Local Testing

Navigate to skill directory

cd src/alexa-skill

Install dependencies

npm install

Create test event

cat > test-event.json << 'EOF'
{
  "version": "1.0",
  "session": {
    "new": true,
    "sessionId": "test-session-001",
    "application": { "applicationId": "test-app-id" },
    "user": { "userId": "amzn1.ask.account.test" }
  },
  "context": {
    "System": { "user": { "userId": "amzn1.ask.account.test" } }
  },
  "request": {
    "type": "IntentRequest",
    "intent": {
      "name": "WhoIsIntent",
      "slots": { "person": { "name": "person", "value": "Sarah" } }
    }
  }
}
EOF

Run test

node -e "
const handler = require('./index.js').handler;
const event = require('./test-event.json');
handler(event, {}, (err, result) => {
  console.log('Result:', JSON.stringify(result, null, 2));
});
"

CloudWatch Monitoring

View Lambda logs

aws logs tail /aws/lambda/buddy-alexa-skill-dev --follow

Check invocation metrics

aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics \
  --namespace AWS/Lambda \
  --metric-name Invocations \
  --dimensions Name=FunctionName,Value=buddy-alexa-skill-dev \
  --start-time $(date -u -v-1H +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S) \
  --end-time $(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S) \
  --period 60 \
  --statistics Sum

🔒 Security

📅 Project Timeline

📚 Documentation

🤝 Contributing

📝 License