I have a use case where I want my voice agent to wait for x seconds after synthesis to actually speak the sentence. What is the recommended way to do this in livekit? @millions-hair-24956

To introduce a delay before your voice agent speaks a sentence after synthesis, you can adjust the

min_endpointing_delay

parameter. This parameter allows you to set a minimum delay before the agent starts speaking, which can be useful for ensuring a pause or waiting period after synthesis. According to LiveKit documentation, setting

min_endpointing_delay

to a higher value will allow the agent to wait longer before responding. Would you like more details on how to implement this or any other aspect of LiveKit? Sources: - LiveKit Slack Discussion 👍 0 button 👎 0 button 💡 Hint: Mention @runllm in the thread for followups.

Is there a way to add this delay after the agent speech is synthesized? @millions-hair-24956

Yes, you can add a delay after the agent speech is synthesized by using the

asyncio.sleep()

function in your code. This allows you to pause the execution for a specified number of seconds after the synthesis is complete but before the speech is played. According to the LiveKit documentation, you can control the timing of events in your agent's workflow using Python's asyncio library. Would you like a code example or further details on implementing this delay? Sources: - LiveKit Documentation 👍 0 button 👎 0 button 💡 Hint: Mention @runllm in the thread for followups.

Where exactly should this be added @millions-hair-24956

It seems likely that you should add the

asyncio.sleep()

function in the

_play_speech

method of your

VoicePipelineAgent

or similar function where the speech playback is managed. This is where the synthesized speech is typically queued for playback, and inserting a delay here would ensure it occurs after synthesis but before playback. Here's a conceptual example:

async def _play_speech(self, speech_handle: SpeechHandle) -> None:
    try:
        await speech_handle.wait_for_initialization()
        await asyncio.sleep(x)  # Add your delay here, where x is the number of seconds
        # Proceed with the rest of the playback logic
    except asyncio.CancelledError:
        return

This code snippet is based on the understanding from the LiveKit documentation that you can manage the timing of speech playback using asyncio. Would you like more detailed guidance on this implementation? Sources: - LiveKit Documentation 👍 0 button 👎 0 button 💡 Hint: Mention @runllm in the thread for followups.

Is there no way to do it without modifying livekit internal code? @millions-hair-24956

It seems likely that you can achieve this without modifying LiveKit's internal code by using the

before_tts_cb

callback. This callback allows you to execute custom logic before the text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis is played. You can introduce a delay in this callback to pause the execution before the speech is played. Here's a conceptual example:

def before_tts_cb(agent, source):
    async def delay_before_playback():
        await asyncio.sleep(x)  # Delay for x seconds
        return source

    return delay_before_playback()

You would set this callback in your agent's configuration, allowing you to introduce a delay without altering the internal LiveKit code. This approach leverages the existing callback mechanism to control the timing of speech playback. Would you like more information on setting up this callback? Sources: - https://docs.livekit.io/python/livekit/agents/utils/aio/index.html 👍 0 button 👎 0 button 💡 Hint: Mention @runllm in the thread for followups.