Talk Mode

Talk Mode

Talk mode is a continuous voice conversation loop:

1. Listen for speech
2. Send transcript to the model (main session, chat.send)
3. Wait for the response
4. Speak it via ElevenLabs (streaming playback)

Behavior (macOS)

• Always-on overlay while Talk mode is enabled.
• Listening → Thinking → Speaking phase transitions.
• On a short pause (silence window), the current transcript is sent.
• Replies are written to WebChat (same as typing).
• Interrupt on speech (default on): if the user starts talking while the assistant is speaking, we stop playback and note the interruption timestamp for the next prompt.

Voice directives in replies

The assistant may prefix its reply with a single JSON line to control voice:

{ "voice": "<voice-id>", "once": true }

Rules:

• First non-empty line only.
• Unknown keys are ignored.
• once: true applies to the current reply only.
• Without once, the voice becomes the new default for Talk mode.
• The JSON line is stripped before TTS playback. Supported keys:
• voice / voice_id / voiceId
• model / model_id / modelId
• speed, rate (WPM), stability, similarity, style, speakerBoost
• seed, normalize, lang, output_format, latency_tier
• once

Config (~/.openclaw/openclaw.json)

{
  talk: {
    voiceId: "elevenlabs_voice_id",
    modelId: "eleven_v3",
    outputFormat: "mp3_44100_128",
    apiKey: "elevenlabs_api_key",
    silenceTimeoutMs: 1500,
    interruptOnSpeech: true,
  },
}

Defaults:

• interruptOnSpeech: true
• silenceTimeoutMs: when unset, Talk keeps the platform default pause window before sending the transcript (700 ms on macOS and Android, 900 ms on iOS)
• voiceId: falls back to ELEVENLABS_VOICE_ID / SAG_VOICE_ID (or first ElevenLabs voice when API key is available)
• modelId: defaults to eleven_v3 when unset
• apiKey: falls back to ELEVENLABS_API_KEY (or gateway shell profile if available)
• outputFormat: defaults to pcm_44100 on macOS/iOS and pcm_24000 on Android (set mp3_* to force MP3 streaming)

macOS UI

• Menu bar toggle: Talk
• Config tab: Talk Mode group (voice id + interrupt toggle)
• Overlay:

Notes

• Requires Speech + Microphone permissions.
• Uses chat.send against session key main.
• TTS uses ElevenLabs streaming API with ELEVENLABS_API_KEY and incremental playback on macOS/iOS/Android for lower latency.
• stability for eleven_v3 is validated to 0.0, 0.5, or 1.0; other models accept 0..1.
• latency_tier is validated to 0..4 when set.
• Android supports pcm_16000, pcm_22050, pcm_24000, and pcm_44100 output formats for low-latency AudioTrack streaming.