Telegram Voice Pipeline

Overview

This skill handles Telegram voice messages end-to-end:

1. Detect voice message via attachment_file_id in channel tag
2. Download OGG/Opus file via Telegram MCP tool
3. Transcribe with Whisper (transcribe-anything)
4. Process transcribed text as the user query — generate a text response
5. Generate TTS audio via ElevenLabs (fallback: OpenAI TTS) → MP3
6. Reply with the MP3 audio file via Telegram MCP tool

When to Invoke

Skill({ skill: 'telegram-voice-pipeline' });

Invoke when:

• A Telegram channel tag has an attachment_file_id attribute (voice or audio message)
• The channel agent needs to respond with audio rather than text
• Any step in the voice pipeline needs to be re-run after a failure

Detection Pattern

Telegram voice messages arrive as channel tags:

<channel source="telegram" chat_id="123456" message_id="789" user="username" ts="1234567890" attachment_file_id="BQACAgIAAxkBAAIBc2...">

Key detection logic:

• attachment_file_id present → voice/audio message → invoke this skill
• image_path present → photo → use image handling instead
• Neither present → text message → normal text response

---

Workflow

Step 1: Download the Voice File

Call the Telegram MCP download tool with the file_id from the channel tag:

// MCP tool call (agent uses this directly)
mcp__telegram - relay__download_attachment({ file_id: '<attachment_file_id>' });
// Returns: local file path, e.g. /tmp/voice_abc123.ogg

Verify: The returned path exists and is non-empty (> 1KB for a real voice message).

Error handling: If download fails, reply with a text message: "Sorry, I couldn't download your voice message. Please try again."

---

Step 2: Transcribe with Whisper

Install transcribe-anything if not present:

pip install transcribe-anything

Run transcription:

transcribe-anything /tmp/voice_abc123.ogg --model medium --output_dir /tmp/tg_voice/

Read the transcript:

cat /tmp/tg_voice/voice_abc123.txt

Model selection (trade-off between speed and accuracy):

Model	Speed	Accuracy	Use when
tiny	~2s	Low	Rapid prototyping only
small	~5s	Medium	Short messages, speed priority
medium	~12s	High	Default — best balance
large-v3	~30s	Best	Long/complex messages

Override via env: WHISPER_MODEL=small (default: medium)

Verify: /tmp/tg_voice/<filename>.txt exists and is non-empty.

Error handling: If transcription fails or output is empty, reply: "I received your voice message but couldn't transcribe it. Could you try sending it again or type your message?"

---

Step 3: Process Transcription as User Message

Use the transcribed text as the user input. Generate a text response using the agent's normal response logic.

transcribed_text = contents of /tmp/tg_voice/<filename>.txt
response_text = <agent's generated response to transcribed_text>

Guard max length for TTS: response_text[:4000] (ElevenLabs limit) or response_text[:4096] (OpenAI TTS limit).

---

Step 4: Generate TTS Audio

Primary: ElevenLabs (requires ELEVENLABS_API_KEY)

import os
from elevenlabs import ElevenLabs

client = ElevenLabs(api_key=os.environ["ELEVENLABS_API_KEY"])
audio = client.text_to_speech.convert(
    text=response_text[:4000],
    voice_id="JBFqnCBsd6RMkjVDRZzb",  # George — clear, neutral voice
    model_id="eleven_turbo_v2",
    output_format="mp3_44100_128",
)
output_path = "/tmp/tg_voice_response.mp3"
with open(output_path, "wb") as f:
    for chunk in audio:
        f.write(chunk)
print(f"TTS written to {output_path}")

Override voice via env: ELEVENLABS_VOICE_ID=<voice_id> (default: JBFqnCBsd6RMkjVDRZzb)

Fallback: OpenAI TTS (requires OPENAI_API_KEY, no ELEVENLABS_API_KEY)

import os
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(api_key=os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"])
with client.audio.speech.with_streaming_response.create(
    model="tts-1",
    voice="nova",
    input=response_text[:4096],
) as response:
    response.stream_to_file("/tmp/tg_voice_response.mp3")
print("TTS written to /tmp/tg_voice_response.mp3")

Selection logic:

if os.environ.get("ELEVENLABS_API_KEY"):
    # Use ElevenLabs
else:
    # Use OpenAI TTS fallback

Verify: /tmp/tg_voice_response.mp3 exists and is > 1KB.

Error handling: If TTS fails, send response_text as a plain text reply instead of audio.

---

Step 5: Reply with Audio File

// MCP tool call
mcp__telegram -
  relay__reply({
    chat_id: '<chat_id from channel tag>',
    text: response_text, // Also send the transcript so user can read it
    files: ['/tmp/tg_voice_response.mp3'],
  });

Note: Including text alongside the audio file gives the user both a readable transcript and the audio reply — useful for accessibility and noisy environments.

Verify: No error returned from the reply tool.

---

Step 6: Cleanup Temp Files

After a successful reply, clean up to avoid disk accumulation:

rm -f /tmp/tg_voice_response.mp3
rm -rf /tmp/tg_voice/

---

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Default	Purpose
ELEVENLABS_API_KEY	NO (if OpenAI set)	—	ElevenLabs TTS API key
ELEVENLABS_VOICE_ID	NO	JBFqnCBsd6RMkjVDRZzb	ElevenLabs voice (George)
OPENAI_API_KEY	NO (if ElevenLabs set)	—	OpenAI TTS fallback key
WHISPER_MODEL	NO	medium	Whisper model size

At least one of ELEVENLABS_API_KEY or OPENAI_API_KEY must be set for TTS to work.

---

Full Pipeline Example

[Telegram] User sends 10-second voice message
   ↓
[Agent] Detects attachment_file_id in channel tag
   ↓
[MCP] download_attachment(file_id) → /tmp/voice_abc123.ogg
   ↓
[Bash] transcribe-anything /tmp/voice_abc123.ogg --model medium → "What is the weather like today?"
   ↓
[Agent] Generates response: "I don't have real-time weather data, but I can help you check..."
   ↓
[Python] ElevenLabs TTS → /tmp/tg_voice_response.mp3
   ↓
[MCP] reply(chat_id, text="I don't have...", files=["/tmp/tg_voice_response.mp3"])
   ↓
[Telegram] User receives text + audio reply
   ↓
[Bash] rm /tmp/tg_voice_response.mp3 && rm -rf /tmp/tg_voice/

Total time for 10-second voice message: ~15-25 seconds (download 1s + transcribe 12s + TTS 2s + reply 1s).

---

Anti-Patterns

• Never skip the download step — attachment_file_id is not a file path, it must be resolved via the MCP tool
• Never use shell: true for subprocess calls in transcription — use array args with shell: false
• Never skip the text fallback — if TTS fails, always send the text response so the user gets an answer
• Never process image attachments through this skill — photos use image_path, not attachment_file_id; route them differently
• Never leave temp files on disk — clean up after every reply to prevent disk accumulation

---

Related Skills

• enable-telegram — Start the channel daemon for background Telegram monitoring
• transcription — Whisper transcription workflow (used in Step 2)
• tts-generation — ElevenLabs and OpenAI TTS (used in Step 4)

References

• Telegram MCP tools: mcp__telegram-relay__download_attachment, mcp__telegram-relay__reply
• transcribe-anything: https://github.com/modal-labs/transcribe-anything
• ElevenLabs Python SDK: https://github.com/elevenlabs/elevenlabs-python
• OpenAI TTS docs: https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/text-to-speech

Search Protocol

For code discovery and search tasks, follow this priority order:

1. pnpm search:code "<query>" (Primary intent-based search).
2. ripgrep (for exact keyword/regex matches).
3. semantic/structural search via code tools if available.

Memory Protocol (MANDATORY)

Before starting:

cat .claude/context/memory/learnings.md
cat .claude/context/memory/decisions.md

After completing:

• New pattern -> .claude/context/memory/learnings.md
• Issue found -> .claude/context/memory/issues.md
• Decision made -> .claude/context/memory/decisions.md

ASSUME INTERRUPTION: Your context may reset. If it's not in memory, it didn't happen.