Audio Streaming

Stream PCM16 audio events from OpenAI's gpt-audio model and write the decoded chunks to a WAV file in real time.

Stream audio responses from an Agno agent using OpenAI's gpt-audio model.

audio_streaming.py
import base64
import wave
from typing import Iterator

from agno.agent import Agent, RunOutputEvent
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIChat

# Audio Configuration
SAMPLE_RATE = 24000  # Hz (24kHz)
CHANNELS = 1  # Mono (Change to 2 if Stereo)
SAMPLE_WIDTH = 2  # Bytes (16 bits)

# Provide the agent with the audio file and audio configuration and get result as text + audio
agent = Agent(
    model=OpenAIChat(
        id="gpt-audio",
        modalities=["text", "audio"],
        audio={
            "voice": "alloy",
            "format": "pcm16",
        },  # Only pcm16 is supported with streaming
    ),
)
output_stream: Iterator[RunOutputEvent] = agent.run(
    "Tell me a 10 second story", stream=True
)

filename = "tmp/response_stream.wav"

# Open the file once in append-binary mode
with wave.open(str(filename), "wb") as wav_file:
    wav_file.setnchannels(CHANNELS)
    wav_file.setsampwidth(SAMPLE_WIDTH)
    wav_file.setframerate(SAMPLE_RATE)

    # Iterate over generated audio
    for response in output_stream:
        response_audio = response.response_audio  # type: ignore
        if response_audio:
            if response_audio.transcript:
                print(response_audio.transcript, end="", flush=True)
            if response_audio.content:
                try:
                    pcm_bytes = base64.b64decode(response_audio.content)
                    wav_file.writeframes(pcm_bytes)
                except Exception as e:
                    print(f"Error decoding audio: {e}")
print()

Usage

Set up your virtual environment

uv venv --python 3.12
source .venv/bin/activate

Install dependencies

uv pip install -U openai agno

Export your OpenAI API key

  export OPENAI_API_KEY="your_openai_api_key_here"

Create the output directory

python -c "from pathlib import Path; Path('tmp').mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)"

Run Agent

python audio_streaming.py

Key Features

  • Streamed output: Consumes audio chunks as the model returns them
  • PCM16 format: Writes 16-bit PCM audio at 24 kHz in mono
  • Transcript output: Prints transcript chunks as they arrive
  • WAV file: Saves the audio stream to tmp/response_stream.wav
  • Decode failures: Prints chunk decoding failures and continues consuming the stream

Next Steps

TaskGuide
Send and receive audioAudio Input and Output
Transcribe audioAudio to Text
Continue an audio conversationAudio Multi-Turn

Output Format

The agent writes 24 kHz, mono, 16-bit PCM audio to tmp/response_stream.wav. The script saves the stream to disk. It does not play the audio.