Phonic

Phonic is a speech-to-speech model. It handles transcription, reasoning, and voice synthesis in a single telephony-tuned model that manages turn-taking and interruptions itself. It goes in the pipeline’s llm slot with no separate STT or TTS, and the Pipeline auto-detects Realtime mode when you pass it.

Setup

Set your Phonic API key in the worker environment. Generate a key from the Phonic site:

export PHONIC_API_KEY=<key>

Usage

Pass the realtime model to the pipeline’s llm slot, no stt or tts needed.

from zeroruntime import Pipeline
from zeroruntime.plugins import PhonicRealtimeConfig, PhonicRealtime

llm = PhonicRealtime(
    config=PhonicRealtimeConfig(
        voice="sabrina",
        welcome_message="Hi, how can I help?",
    ),
)

pipeline = Pipeline(llm=llm)

PhonicRealtime ships in the Python SDK only. The Node JS SDK does not include this plugin yet.

PhonicRealtime requires a zeroruntime release newer than 0.1.9.

Parameters

Constructor parameters for PhonicRealtime.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`api_key`	`str`	`None`	Phonic API key. Falls back to the `PHONIC_API_KEY` environment variable when unset.
`model`	`str \| None`	`None`	Phonic model name, e.g. “phonic-1”. None uses Phonic’s current default model.
`config`	`dict \| None`	`None`	Conversation settings such as voice, languages, welcome message and silence timers.
`base_url`	`str \| None`	`None`	WebSocket URL of the Phonic conversations endpoint.

`config` keys

config takes a PhonicRealtimeConfig or a plain dict with the same keys.

Field	Type	Default	Description
`agent`	`str \| None`	`None`	Name of an agent on the Phonic platform. Your instructions and any field set here override that agent’s settings.
`project`	`str \| None`	`None`	Phonic project name. Phonic uses ‘main’ when unset.
`voice`	`str \| None`	`None`	Phonic voice ID, e.g. ‘sabrina’ or ‘grant’.
`welcome_message`	`str \| None`	`None`	Message Phonic speaks when the conversation starts.
`generate_welcome_message`	`bool \| None`	`None`	Have Phonic generate the welcome message instead.
`is_welcome_message_interruptible`	`bool \| None`	`None`	Whether the caller can cut the welcome message off.
`audio_speed`	`float \| None`	`None`	Playback speed, 0.5 to 1.5.
`default_language`	`str \| None`	`None`	ISO 639-1 language code to recognize and speak, e.g. ‘en’.
`additional_languages`	`list[str] \| None`	`None`	Further ISO 639-1 codes the agent can switch to.
`multilingual_mode`	`Literal['auto', 'request', 'initial'] \| None`	`None`	How the language is chosen: ‘request’, ‘auto’ or ‘initial’. The spelling is Phonic’s own.
`intelligence_level`	`Literal['standard', 'high'] \| None`	`None`	’standard’ for lower latency, ‘high’ for harder reasoning.
`boosted_keywords`	`list[str] \| None`	`None`	Words to boost in speech recognition.
`pronunciation_dictionary`	`list[dict[str, str]] \| None`	`None`	List of `{"word": ..., "pronunciation": ...}` entries.
`min_words_to_interrupt`	`int \| None`	`None`	User words needed to interrupt the agent, 1 to 10.
`vad_min_silence_duration_ms`	`int \| None`	`None`	Milliseconds of silence that end the user’s turn, up to 1500.
`vad_threshold`	`float \| None`	`None`	Voice activity threshold, 0.2 to 0.8.
`no_input_poke_sec`	`int \| None`	`None`	Seconds of silence before the poke message.
`no_input_poke_text`	`str \| None`	`None`	Poke message text.
`generate_no_input_poke_text`	`bool \| None`	`None`	Have Phonic generate the poke message instead.
`no_input_end_conversation_sec`	`int \| None`	`None`	Seconds of silence before Phonic ends the call and the agent hangs up, 30 to 600. Phonic’s default is 180.
`enable_assistant_backchannel`	`bool \| None`	`None`	Say ‘mm-hmm’ while the user is speaking.
`template_variables`	`dict[str, str] \| None`	`None`	Values for template variables in the prompt.
`tools`	`list[str \| dict[str, Any]] \| None`	`None`	Names of pre-defined or built-in Phonic tools, e.g. ‘natural_conversation_ending’, or built-in tool objects. Function tools come from the agent.
`tool_call_output_timeout_ms`	`int`	`60000`	How long Phonic waits for a function tool’s result, 1000 to 180000.
`stream_ahead_of_real_time`	`bool`	`True`	Receive audio as fast as Phonic generates it and pace it locally, which rides out network jitter.

To pair the realtime model with an external STT or TTS, see Hybrid mode. For general plugin concepts, see the plugins overview.

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​Parameters

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Setup

Usage

Parameters

`config` keys