Speech to Text

Transcribe audio to text using OpenAI Whisper API.

Requires Rebyte API auth — $AUTH_TOKEN and $API_URL are set up per the agent's system prompt; use them as Bearer token and base URL.

When to Use

Use this skill when the user needs to:

• Transcribe audio recordings to text
• Generate subtitles or captions (SRT, VTT)
• Extract spoken content from audio files
• Convert voice memos or interviews to text

How It Works

Send audio directly via multipart/form-data — standard Whisper API format:

curl -s -X POST "$API_URL/api/data/stt/transcribe" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AUTH_TOKEN" \
  -F "file=@recording.mp3" \
  -F "model=whisper-1" \
  -F "language=en" \
  -F "response_format=json"

Response:

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "text": "Hello, this is a transcription of the audio recording."
  }
}

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
file	file	Yes	-	Audio file (multipart/form-data)
language	string	No	auto	ISO-639-1 language code (e.g. "en", "es", "ja") — improves accuracy
prompt	string	No	-	Optional text to guide transcription style or continue a previous segment
model	string	No	whisper-1	Model to use (currently only whisper-1)
response_format	string	No	json	Output format (see below)
temperature	number	No	0	Sampling temperature (0-1). Lower = more deterministic

Response Formats

Format	Description	Use Case
json	Simple JSON with text field	Default, quick text extraction
verbose_json	JSON with timestamps, segments, duration	When you need word-level timing
text	Plain text only	Simple text output
srt	SubRip subtitle format	Video subtitles
vtt	WebVTT subtitle format	Web video captions

Supported Audio Formats

Whisper accepts: mp3, mp4, mpeg, mpga, m4a, wav, webm, ogg, flac

Max file size: 25 MB

Example: Full Transcription Workflow

# Get auth
AUTH_TOKEN=$(/home/user/.local/bin/rebyte-auth)
API_URL=$(python3 -c "import json; print(json.load(open('/home/user/.rebyte.ai/auth.json'))['sandbox']['relay_url'])")

# Transcribe directly
RESULT=$(curl -s -X POST "$API_URL/api/data/stt/transcribe" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AUTH_TOKEN" \
  -F "file=@interview.mp3" \
  -F "language=en" \
  -F "response_format=json")

# Extract text
echo "$RESULT" | jq -r '.data.text' > transcript.txt
echo "Transcript saved to transcript.txt"

Example: Generate SRT Subtitles

RESULT=$(curl -s -X POST "$API_URL/api/data/stt/transcribe" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AUTH_TOKEN" \
  -F "file=@video-audio.mp3" \
  -F "response_format=srt")

# Save SRT file
echo "$RESULT" | jq -r '.data.text' > subtitles.srt

# Burn subtitles into video with ffmpeg
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vf subtitles=subtitles.srt output.mp4

Tips

• Always specify language when you know it — improves accuracy and speed
• Use verbose_json when you need timestamps for syncing with video
• Use srt or vtt format to directly generate subtitle files
• For long audio files, consider splitting with ffmpeg first: ffmpeg -i long.mp3 -f segment -segment_time 300 -c copy chunk_%03d.mp3
• Set temperature to 0 (default) for most accurate results
• The prompt parameter helps with domain-specific terms — include key vocabulary the model should recognize