title: how to send a http request to my alexa skill and get a response from it?
body: <p>Objective -
  I created a basic Alexa skill using the Alexa hosted option, and I want to send an HTTP request to my Alexa back end in text or in JSON and get the response as a text without using an Alexa device.</p>
  <p>question 1-
  is this even possible with the Alexa hosted option</p>
  <p>question 2 -
  if it's possible will my user-id be Alexa skill messaging client id or the client id from my security profile?</p>
  <p>my progress -
  so I did a bit of research on this and found this page:</p>
  <p><a href="https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/smapi/send-a-message-request-to-a-skill.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/smapi/send-a-message-request-to-a-skill.html</a></p>
  <p>but I keep encountering two problems ie. when I try to make a post request.
  1 - It says &quot;type&quot;: &quot;BAD_REQUEST&quot;, &quot;message&quot;: &quot;One or more parameters received are not in the correct format.&quot;, which I think is probably caused by this line -
  MESSAGE='{&quot;data&quot;:{ &quot;sample message&quot;: &quot;Sample Message&quot;}, &quot;expiresAfterSeconds&quot;: 60}'</p>
  <p>2 - when I change my message to MESSAGE='{&quot;data&quot;:{}' ie. an empty message.
  it says
  <em>{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;NOT_FOUND&quot;,&quot;message&quot;:&quot;Invalid user id.&quot;}</em></p>
  <p>I tried both client id's ie. the one that my Alexa skill provides and the one which I created in my security profile but the outcome remains the same.
  and
  thus my question is this is even possible to do with the Alexa-hosted option.</p>