Discord Voice Plugin for Clawdbot

Real-time voice conversations in Discord voice channels. Join a voice channel, speak, and have your words transcribed, processed by Claude, and spoken back.

Features

• Join/Leave Voice Channels: Via slash commands, CLI, or agent tool
• Voice Activity Detection (VAD): Automatically detects when users are speaking
• Speech-to-Text: Whisper API (OpenAI) or Deepgram
• Streaming STT: Real-time transcription with Deepgram WebSocket (~1s latency reduction)
• Agent Integration: Transcribed speech is routed through the Clawdbot agent
• Text-to-Speech: OpenAI TTS or ElevenLabs
• Audio Playback: Responses are spoken back in the voice channel
• Barge-in Support: Stops speaking immediately when user starts talking
• Auto-reconnect: Automatic heartbeat monitoring and reconnection on disconnect

Requirements

• Discord bot with voice permissions (Connect, Speak, Use Voice Activity)
• API keys for STT and TTS providers
• System dependencies for voice:
  • ffmpeg (audio processing)
  • Native build tools for @discordjs/opus and sodium-native

Installation

1. Install System Dependencies

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg build-essential python3

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf install ffmpeg gcc-c++ make python3

# macOS
brew install ffmpeg

2. Install Node Dependencies

cd ~/.clawdbot/extensions/discord-voice
npm install

3. Configure in clawdbot.json

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "discord-voice": {
        "enabled": true,
        "config": {
          "sttProvider": "whisper",
          "ttsProvider": "openai",
          "ttsVoice": "nova",
          "vadSensitivity": "medium",
          "allowedUsers": [],  // Empty = allow all users
          "silenceThresholdMs": 1500,
          "maxRecordingMs": 30000,
          "openai": {
            "apiKey": "sk-..."  // Or use OPENAI_API_KEY env var
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

4. Discord Bot Setup

Ensure your Discord bot has these permissions:

• Connect - Join voice channels
• Speak - Play audio
• Use Voice Activity - Detect when users speak

Add these to your bot's OAuth2 URL or configure in Discord Developer Portal.

Configuration

Provider Configuration

OpenAI (Whisper + TTS)

{
  "openai": {
    "apiKey": "sk-...",
    "whisperModel": "whisper-1",
    "ttsModel": "tts-1"
  }
}

ElevenLabs (TTS only)

{
  "elevenlabs": {
    "apiKey": "...",
    "voiceId": "21m00Tcm4TlvDq8ikWAM",  // Rachel
    "modelId": "eleven_multilingual_v2"
  }
}

Deepgram (STT only)

{
  "deepgram": {
    "apiKey": "...",
    "model": "nova-2"
  }
}

Usage

Slash Commands (Discord)

Once registered with Discord, use these commands:

• /voice join <channel> - Join a voice channel
• /voice leave - Leave the current voice channel
• /voice status - Show voice connection status

CLI Commands

# Join a voice channel
clawdbot voice join <channelId>

# Leave voice
clawdbot voice leave --guild <guildId>

# Check status
clawdbot voice status

Agent Tool

The agent can use the discord_voice tool:

Join voice channel 1234567890

The tool supports actions:

• join - Join a voice channel (requires channelId)
• leave - Leave voice channel
• speak - Speak text in the voice channel
• status - Get current voice status

How It Works

1. Join: Bot joins the specified voice channel
2. Listen: VAD detects when users start/stop speaking
3. Record: Audio is buffered while user speaks
4. Transcribe: On silence, audio is sent to STT provider
5. Process: Transcribed text is sent to Clawdbot agent
6. Synthesize: Agent response is converted to audio via TTS
7. Play: Audio is played back in the voice channel

Streaming STT (Deepgram)

When using Deepgram as your STT provider, streaming mode is enabled by default. This provides:

• ~1 second faster end-to-end latency
• Real-time feedback with interim transcription results
• Automatic keep-alive to prevent connection timeouts
• Fallback to batch transcription if streaming fails

To use streaming STT:

{
  "sttProvider": "deepgram",
  "streamingSTT": true,  // default
  "deepgram": {
    "apiKey": "...",
    "model": "nova-2"
  }
}

Barge-in Support

When enabled (default), the bot will immediately stop speaking if a user starts talking. This creates a more natural conversational flow where you can interrupt the bot.

To disable (let the bot finish speaking):

{
  "bargeIn": false
}

Auto-reconnect

The plugin includes automatic connection health monitoring:

• Heartbeat checks every 30 seconds (configurable)
• Auto-reconnect on disconnect with exponential backoff
• Max 3 attempts before giving up

If the connection drops, you'll see logs like:

[discord-voice] Disconnected from voice channel
[discord-voice] Reconnection attempt 1/3
[discord-voice] Reconnected successfully

VAD Sensitivity

• low: Picks up quiet speech, may trigger on background noise
• medium: Balanced (recommended)
• high: Requires louder, clearer speech

Troubleshooting

"Discord client not available"

Ensure the Discord channel is configured and the bot is connected before using voice.

Opus/Sodium build errors

Install build tools:

npm install -g node-gyp
npm rebuild @discordjs/opus sodium-native

No audio heard

1. Check bot has Connect + Speak permissions
2. Check bot isn't server muted
3. Verify TTS API key is valid

Transcription not working

1. Check STT API key is valid
2. Check audio is being recorded (see debug logs)
3. Try adjusting VAD sensitivity

Enable debug logging

DEBUG=discord-voice clawdbot gateway start

Environment Variables

Limitations

• Only one voice channel per guild at a time
• Maximum recording length: 30 seconds (configurable)
• Requires stable network for real-time audio
• TTS output may have slight delay due to synthesis

License

Same as Clawdbot.