Account Linking for Smart Home and Other Domains
All smart home add-ons and video skills must implement account linking to connect the identity of the Alexa user with an identity in the device cloud system. Some music skills also support account linking.
For an explanation of account linking concepts, see Account Linking Concepts. For the user experience, see How Users Experience Account Linking.
Prerequisites
To implement account linking for smart home add-ons, you must have the following prerequisites:
- Your system must support OAuth 2.0 and the authorization code grant type.
If you don't have your own authorization server, you can use Login with Amazon (LWA) or any OAuth 2.0 provider that has a certificate signed by an Amazon-approved certificate authority. Note that you cannot usehttps://letsencrypt.org/, even though it's on the certificate list. - Your OAuth provider must meet the Requirements for Account Linking.
- If you enable the Send Alexa Events permission for the smart home add-ons, your add-on must handle the
AcceptGrantdirective. If your add-on doesn't handle this directive, account linking fails when the user attempts to enable your add-on. For more details, see Request Access to the Alexa Event Gateway.
Steps to implement account linking
Follow the Steps to Implement Account Linking and use the authorization code grant type.
Validate the access token
Each directive sent to your add-on or skill includes the access token to identify the user. Your code needs to validate the token, and then use it to access information about the user. For more details, see the following topics:
Automated registration
With automated registration, your skill can allow users to automatically register with your system during device setup and link that identity with their Alexa identity. To learn more about this feature, contact your Amazon business representative or fill out the contact us form.
Related topics
- Validate and Use Access Tokens in Smart Home and Video Code
- Validate and Use Access Tokens in Music Skill Code
- Add Account Linking for Alexa
- Account Linking Concepts
Last updated: Jul 14, 2026
