should we use a stream adapter with assembly ai

Thanks for reaching out, Bobvi. I'm an AI assistant and I'm here to help. Give me a moment while I research this topic.

asssembly ai isnt getting small words like no and yes or three sometimes form the user, becasue its too small, how can i imrpove this so assembly stt pipeline processes this do i need to add more padding with vad ?

You're right to suspect padding — short words often get truncated. You can improve detection by adjusting VAD padding and a few related settings. Try the following: • Increase VAD prefix/suffix padding so brief words aren't cut off (example:

prefix_padding_duration=0.8s

instead of 0.5s). • Lower

min_speech_duration

(e.g., ~0.05s) so very short utterances are kept. • Slightly increase

min_silence_duration

to avoid premature trimming. • Keep a VAD (like

silero.VAD

) alongside AssemblyAI for interruption handling, but do NOT use

StreamAdapter

with AssemblyAI. • Tune AssemblyAI endpointing parameters (

end_of_turn_confidence_threshold

,

min_end_of_turn_silence_when_confident

) so its phrase endpointing better recognizes short turns. If you want, tell me: • which SDK/language you’re using (Python or Node), • your current VAD settings, and I’ll suggest concrete values to try. Sources: Silero VAD plugin | LiveKit docs | AssemblyAI plugin guide | LiveKit docs

when i say just yes to the agent i get T-DIAG] Speech #5 started", "level": "INFO", "name": "__mp_main__", "pid": 219, "job_id": "AJ_joCeyDug8NmX", "room_id": "RM_MvtKG6rgwcVH", "timestamp": "2025-12-31T181033.607840+00:00"} 2025-12-31 181034,407 [INFO] __mp_main__: [Session] User state: speaking -> listening 2025-12-31 181034,407 [INFO] __mp_main__: [STT-DIAG] Speech #5 ended: duration=799ms 2025-12-31 181034,407 [INFO] __mp_main__: [STT-DIAG] Flushing STT buffer for speech #5 2025-12-31 181034,407 [INFO] __mp_main__: [Session] User state: speaking -> listening {"message": "[Session] User state: speaking -> listening", "level": "INFO", "name": "__mp_main__", "pid": 219, "job_id": "AJ_joCeyDug8NmX", "room_id": "RM_MvtKG6rgwcVH", "timestamp": "2025-12-31T181034.407113+00:00"} 2025-12-31 181034,407 [INFO] __mp_main__: [STT-DIAG] Speech #5 ended: duration=799ms {"message": "[STT-DIAG] Speech #5 ended: duration=799ms", "level": "INFO", "name": "__mp_main__", "pid": 219, "job_id": "AJ_joCeyDug8NmX", "room_id": "RM_MvtKG6rgwcVH", "timestamp": "2025-12-31T181034.407304+00:00"} 2025-12-31 181034,407 [INFO] __mp_main__: [STT-DIAG] Flushing STT buffer for speech #5 {"message": "[STT-DIAG] Flushing STT buffer for speech #5", "level": "INFO", "name": "__mp_main__", "pid": 219, "job_id": "AJ_joCeyDug8NmX", "room_id": "RM_MvtKG6rgwcVH", "timestamp": "2025-12-31T181034.407400+00:00"} 2025-12-31 181034,807 [INFO] services.execution_persistence: [Telemetry] Flush started: execution=1080ab4a-172c-5221-91cf-3b1a432bee6c, buffer_size=5, metric_types={'vad_metrics', 'user_interaction'}, retry_queue_size=0 2025-12-31 181034,807 [INFO] services.execution_persistence: [Telemetry] Flush started: execution=1080ab4a-172c-5221-91cf-3b1a432bee6c, buffer_size=5, metric_types={'vad_metrics', 'user_interaction'}, retry_queue_size=0 {"message": "[Telemetry] Flush started: execution=1080ab4a-172c-5221-91cf-3b1a432bee6c, buffer_size=5, metric_types={'vad_metrics', 'user_interaction'}, retry_queue_size=0", "level": "INFO", "name": "services.execution_persistence", "pid": 219, "job_id": "AJ_joCeyDug8NmX", "room_id": "RM_MvtKG6rgwcVH", "timestamp": "2025-12-31T181034.807679+00:00"} 2025-12-31 181036,408 [WARNING] __mp_main__: [STT-DIAG] Speech #5 (799ms) - NO TRANSCRIPT received after 2s! 2025-12-31 181036,408 [WARNING] __mp_main__: [STT-DIAG] Speech #5 - NO stt_metrics received (audio may not have reached STT) 2025-12-31 181036,408 [WARNING] __mp_main__: [STT-DIAG] Speech #5 (799ms) - NO TRANSCRIPT received after 2s! {"message": "[STT-DIAG] Speech #5 (799ms) - NO TRANSCRIPT received after 2s!", "level": "WARNING", "name": "__mp_main__", "pid": 219, "job_id": "AJ_joCeyDug8NmX", "room_id": "RM_MvtKG6rgwcVH", "timestamp": "2025-12-31T181036.408278+00:00"} 2025-12-31 181036,408 [WARNING] __mp_main__: [STT-DIAG] Speech #5 - NO stt_metrics received (audio may not have reached STT) {"message": "[STT-DIAG] Speech #5 - NO stt_metrics received (audio may not have reached STT)", "level": "WARNING", "name": "__mp_main__", "pid": 219, "job_id": "AJ_joCeyDug8NmX", "room_id": "RM_MvtKG6rgwcVH", "timestamp": "2025-12-31T181036.408659+00:00"} 2025-12-31 181037,863 [INFO] services.execution_persistence: [Telemetry] Flush started: execution=1080ab4a-172c-5221-91cf-3b1a432bee6c, buffer_size=2, metric_types={'vad_metrics'}, retry_queue_size=0 2025-12-31 181037,863 [INFO] services.execution_persistence: [Telemetry] Flush started: execution=1080ab4a-172c-5221-91cf-3b1a432bee6c, buffer_size=2, metric_types={'vad_metrics'}, retry_queue_size=0 {"message": "[Telemetry] Flush started: execution=1080ab4a-172c-5221-91cf-3b1a432bee6c, buffer_size=2, metric_types={'vad_metrics'}, retry_queue_size=0", "level": "INFO", "name": "services.execution_persistence", "pid": 219, "job_id": "AJ_joCeyDug8NmX", "room_id": "RM_MvtKG6rgwcVH", "timestamp": "2025-12-31T181037.863143+00:00"} 2025-12-31 181040,012 [INFO] services.execution_persistence: [Telemetry] Flush started: execution=1080ab4a-172c-5221-91cf-3b1a432bee6c, buffer_size=3, metric_types={'vad_metrics'}, retry_queue_size=0 2025-12-31 181040,012 [INFO] services.execution_persistence: [Telemetry] Flush started: execution=1080ab4a-172c-5221-91cf-3b1a432bee6c, buffer_size=3, metric_types={'vad_metrics'}, retry_queue_size=0 {"message": "[Telemetry] Flush started: execution=1080ab4a-172c-5221-91cf-3b1a432bee6c, buffer_size=3, metric_types={'vad_metrics'}, retry_queue_size=0", "level": "INFO", "name": "services.execution_persistence", "pid": 219, "job_id": "AJ_joCeyDug8NmX", "room_id": "RM_MvtKG6rgwcVH", "timestamp": "2025-12-31T181040.012750+00:00"} 2025-12-31 181042,959 [INFO] services.execution_pers timeout with one word responses

Thanks — I’m looking at the logs you pasted and the issue you described: AssemblyAI often fails to return a transcript for very short utterances (e.g., “yes”), and you see “NO TRANSCRIPT received after 2s” for a ~799ms speech segment. To help quickly, I need two quick details: • Which SDK/language are you running (Python or Node)? • Current VAD settings you’re using:

prefix_padding_duration

,

min_speech_duration

, and

min_silence_duration

(or tell me if you’re using defaults). Meanwhile, try these concrete adjustments that commonly fix one-word responses: • Increase VAD prefix/suffix padding to ~0.7–0.9s (e.g.,

prefix_padding_duration=0.8

) so the short word isn’t clipped at the edges. • Lower

min_speech_duration

to ~0.03–0.06s so very brief utterances are preserved. • Slightly increase

min_silence_duration

to ~0.12–0.2s to avoid trimming too soon. • Ensure your pipeline waits long enough for AssemblyAI to return results — 2s may be too short for short audio that needs endpointing. If you have a request timeout or a flush-after threshold, extend it to ~4–6s for testing. • Keep VAD active (e.g.,

silero.VAD

) and set

turn_detection="stt"

so AssemblyAI’s phrase endpointing handles boundaries while VAD manages interruption responsiveness. Give me your SDK and current settings and I’ll suggest exact code examples and next values to try.

Current VAD settings: - prefix_padding_duration=0.8 (already at suggested range) - min_speech_duration=0.05 (50ms - within suggested range) - min_silence_duration=0.6 (600ms - higher than suggested 0.12-0.2s) - activation_threshold=0.5 AssemblyAI STT settings: ⏺️ Search(pattern: "assemblyai\.STT|end_of_turn|commit_user_turn|transcript_timeout", path: "src/agent.py", output_mode: "content") ⎿ Found 20 lines (ctrl+o to expand) ⏺️ Current AssemblyAI STT config: stt=assemblyai.STT( model="universal-streaming-multilingual", end_of_turn_confidence_threshold=0.3, # Aggressive min_end_of_turn_silence_when_confident=160, # 160ms max_turn_silence=800, # 800ms format_turns=False, ) commit_user_turn timeout: session.commit_user_turn( transcript_timeout=2.0, # <-- This may be too short per your suggestion stt_flush_duration=0.5, ) turn_detection: "stt" ✓

Thanks — I looked at your settings and logs. You’ve already got good padding and aggressive STT confidence, but two things are causing the missed one-word responses: a large VAD silence threshold (600ms) and a short

transcript_timeout

(2s). Change these and test. What to change (concrete): • VAD ◦

min_silence_duration = 0.15

(150 ms) — reduces the silence needed to close very short speech. ◦

activation_threshold = 0.4

— increases sensitivity for quieter/brief words. ◦ Keep

prefix_padding_duration = 0.8

and

min_speech_duration = 0.05

. • AssemblyAI STT ◦

min_end_of_turn_silence_when_confident = 80

(ms) ◦

max_turn_silence = 600

(ms) ◦ Keep

end_of_turn_confidence_threshold = 0.3

• commit_user_turn ◦ `transcript_timeout = 3.5`–`4.0` seconds (increase from 2.0) ◦ Keep

stt_flush_duration = 0.5

Rationale in one line: reducing VAD silence ensures short utterances aren’t ignored; lowering AssemblyAI’s end-of-turn silence tightens endpointing; increasing transcript timeout prevents premature commit before AssemblyAI returns a final transcript. If you want, I can produce the exact code snippet for your SDK (Python or Node) with these values — which language are you using? Sources: Silero VAD plugin | LiveKit docs | AssemblyAI plugin guide | LiveKit docs | Turns overview | LiveKit docs