For the

min_interruption_words

option, the document says:

min_interruption_words (int): Minimum number of words to consider
                an interruption, only used if stt enabled. Default 0

What does it mean?

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

but does it require STT for the agent (AgentSession(stt=...)) or stt to be enabled at the turn detection level ?

Thanks — I’m answering your follow-up about where STT must be enabled for

min_interruption_words

to work. Short answer: STT must be enabled on the agent session (e.g.,

AgentSession(stt=...)

).

min_interruption_words

only takes effect when the agent has an STT plugin active to produce transcriptions the interruption logic can count. Clarification: • Enabling

turn_detection="stt"

alone does not make

min_interruption_words

work unless the session actually has an STT implementation configured. • The interruption decision uses both audio/VAD rules (like

min_interruption_duration

) and the word count from the agent’s STT transcription (

min_interruption_words

). Both conditions must be satisfied for an interruption to trigger. If you’d like, tell me how you currently construct your

AgentSession

(example config) and I’ll confirm whether your setup will allow

min_interruption_words

to be applied and suggest values. Sources: Turns overview | LiveKit Documentation | Uninterruptable Agent | LiveKit Documentation | examples/voice_agents | livekit/livekit_composite | DeepWiki

ok so if I set min_interruption_words is set to 0, what dictates how long the user should speak to interrupt the agent?

Thanks — I’m responding to your question about what controls interruption length when

min_interruption_words = 0

. When

min_interruption_words

is set to 0, word-count no longer prevents interruptions, so the interruption decision is based on speech duration and voice-activity detection (VAD). The main parameter that dictates how long the user must speak to interrupt the agent is: • min_interruption_duration — the minimum length of detected speech required to trigger an interruption (default 0.5 seconds). How it works in practice: • VAD detects when the user starts speaking and measures the speech segment duration. • If the detected speech lasts at least

min_interruption_duration

, the agent may be interrupted (assuming

allow_interruptions

is enabled and other interruption rules permit it). • If you use a VAD plugin (for example, Silero VAD), its own settings (like

activation_threshold

or

min_speech_duration

) affect when speech is first detected, but the final interruption still requires meeting

min_interruption_duration

. If you’d like, tell me your current

min_interruption_duration

value and any VAD settings you’re using — I can suggest a combination that reduces false positives while still allowing timely user interruptions. Sources: Turns overview | LiveKit Documentation | VAD and turn detection configuration guide | LiveKit