Patent attributes
A speech-processing system may provide access to one or more skills via spoken commands and/or responses in the form of synthesized speech. The system may be capable of keeping one or more skills active in the background while a user interacts (e.g., provides inputs to and/or receives outputs from) with a skill running in the foreground. A background skill may receive some trigger data, and determine to request the system to return the background skill to the foreground to, for example, request a user input regarding an action previously requested by the user. In some cases, the user may invoke a background skill to continue a previous interaction. The system may return the background skill to the foreground. The resumed skill may continue a previous interaction to, for example, to query the user for instructions, provide an update or alert, or continue a previous output.