Create session

POSThttps:/api.openai.com/v1/realtime/sessions

Create an ephemeral API token for use in client-side applications with the Realtime API. Can be configured with the same session parameters as the session.update client event.

It responds with a session object, plus a client_secret key which contains a usable ephemeral API token that can be used to authenticate browser clients for the Realtime API.

Request body

  • modalities
    object
    The set of modalities the model can respond with. To disable audio, set this to ["text"].
  • model
    string
    The Realtime model used for this session.
    • gpt-4o-realtime-preview
      string
    • gpt-4o-realtime-preview-2024-10-01
      string
    • gpt-4o-realtime-preview-2024-12-17
      string
    • gpt-4o-mini-realtime-preview
      string
    • gpt-4o-mini-realtime-preview-2024-12-17
      string
  • instructions
    string

    The default system instructions (i.e. system message) prepended to model calls. This field allows the client to guide the model on desired responses. The model can be instructed on response content and format, (e.g. "be extremely succinct", "act friendly", "here are examples of good responses") and on audio behavior (e.g. "talk quickly", "inject emotion into your voice", "laugh frequently"). The instructions are not guaranteed to be followed by the model, but they provide guidance to the model on the desired behavior.

    Note that the server sets default instructions which will be used if this field is not set and are visible in the session.created event at the start of the session.

  • voice
    string

    The voice the model uses to respond. Voice cannot be changed during the session once the model has responded with audio at least once. Current voice options are alloy, ash, ballad, coral, echo, fable, onyx, nova, sage, shimmer, and verse.

    • voice
      string
    • voice
      string
      • alloy
        string
      • ash
        string
      • ballad
        string
      • coral
        string
      • echo
        string
      • fable
        string
      • onyx
        string
      • nova
        string
      • sage
        string
      • shimmer
        string
      • verse
        string
  • input_audio_format
    string
    Defaults: pcm16

    The format of input audio. Options are pcm16, g711_ulaw, or g711_alaw. For pcm16, input audio must be 16-bit PCM at a 24kHz sample rate, single channel (mono), and little-endian byte order.

    • pcm16
      string
    • g711_ulaw
      string
    • g711_alaw
      string
  • output_audio_format
    string
    Defaults: pcm16

    The format of output audio. Options are pcm16, g711_ulaw, or g711_alaw. For pcm16, output audio is sampled at a rate of 24kHz.

    • pcm16
      string
    • g711_ulaw
      string
    • g711_alaw
      string
  • input_audio_transcription
    object

    Configuration for input audio transcription, defaults to off and can be set to null to turn off once on. Input audio transcription is not native to the model, since the model consumes audio directly. Transcription runs asynchronously through the /audio/transcriptions endpoint and should be treated as guidance of input audio content rather than precisely what the model heard. The client can optionally set the language and prompt for transcription, these offer additional guidance to the transcription service.

    • model
      string

      The model to use for transcription, current options are gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe, and whisper-1.

    • language
      string

      The language of the input audio. Supplying the input language in ISO-639-1 (e.g. en) format will improve accuracy and latency.

    • prompt
      string

      An optional text to guide the model's style or continue a previous audio segment. For whisper-1, the prompt is a list of keywords. For gpt-4o-transcribe models, the prompt is a free text string, for example "expect words related to technology".

  • turn_detection
    object

    Configuration for turn detection, ether Server VAD or Semantic VAD. This can be set to null to turn off, in which case the client must manually trigger model response. Server VAD means that the model will detect the start and end of speech based on audio volume and respond at the end of user speech. Semantic VAD is more advanced and uses a turn detection model (in conjuction with VAD) to semantically estimate whether the user has finished speaking, then dynamically sets a timeout based on this probability. For example, if user audio trails off with "uhhm", the model will score a low probability of turn end and wait longer for the user to continue speaking. This can be useful for more natural conversations, but may have a higher latency.

    • type
      string
      Defaults: server_vad
      Type of turn detection.
      • server_vad
        string
      • semantic_vad
        string
    • eagerness
      string
      Defaults: auto

      Used only for semantic_vad mode. The eagerness of the model to respond. low will wait longer for the user to continue speaking, high will respond more quickly. auto is the default and is equivalent to medium.

      • low
        string
      • medium
        string
      • high
        string
      • auto
        string
    • threshold
      number

      Used only for server_vad mode. Activation threshold for VAD (0.0 to 1.0), this defaults to 0.5. A higher threshold will require louder audio to activate the model, and thus might perform better in noisy environments.

    • prefix_padding_ms
      integer

      Used only for server_vad mode. Amount of audio to include before the VAD detected speech (in milliseconds). Defaults to 300ms.

    • silence_duration_ms
      integer

      Used only for server_vad mode. Duration of silence to detect speech stop (in milliseconds). Defaults to 500ms. With shorter values the model will respond more quickly, but may jump in on short pauses from the user.

    • create_response
      boolean
      Defaults: true
      Whether or not to automatically generate a response when a VAD stop event occurs.
    • interrupt_response
      boolean
      Defaults: true

      Whether or not to automatically interrupt any ongoing response with output to the default conversation (i.e. conversation of auto) when a VAD start event occurs.

  • input_audio_noise_reduction
    object
    Defaults: null

    Configuration for input audio noise reduction. This can be set to null to turn off. Noise reduction filters audio added to the input audio buffer before it is sent to VAD and the model. Filtering the audio can improve VAD and turn detection accuracy (reducing false positives) and model performance by improving perception of the input audio.

    • type
      string

      Type of noise reduction. near_field is for close-talking microphones such as headphones, far_field is for far-field microphones such as laptop or conference room microphones.

      • near_field
        string
      • far_field
        string
  • tools
    array
    Tools (functions) available to the model.
    • items
      object
      • type
        string

        The type of the tool, i.e. function.

        • function
          string
      • name
        string
        The name of the function.
      • description
        string
        The description of the function, including guidance on when and how to call it, and guidance about what to tell the user when calling (if anything).
      • parameters
        object
        Parameters of the function in JSON Schema.
  • tool_choice
    string
    Defaults: auto

    How the model chooses tools. Options are auto, none, required, or specify a function.

  • temperature
    number
    Defaults: 0.8
    Sampling temperature for the model, limited to [0.6, 1.2]. For audio models a temperature of 0.8 is highly recommended for best performance.
  • max_response_output_tokens
    integer or string

    Maximum number of output tokens for a single assistant response, inclusive of tool calls. Provide an integer between 1 and 4096 to limit output tokens, or inf for the maximum available tokens for a given model. Defaults to inf.

    • max_response_output_tokens
      integer
    • max_response_output_tokens
      string
      • inf
        string

Response

The created Realtime session object, plus an ephemeral key

Example request
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curl -X POST https://api.openai.com/v1/realtime/sessions \
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-H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
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-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
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-d '{
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"model": "gpt-4o-realtime-preview",
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"modalities": ["audio", "text"],
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"instructions": "You are a friendly assistant."
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}'
Example response
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{
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"id": "sess_001",
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"object": "realtime.session",
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"model": "gpt-4o-realtime-preview",
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"modalities": ["audio", "text"],
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"instructions": "You are a friendly assistant.",
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"voice": "alloy",
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"input_audio_format": "pcm16",
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"output_audio_format": "pcm16",
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"input_audio_transcription": {
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"model": "whisper-1"
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},
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"turn_detection": null,
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"tools": [],
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"tool_choice": "none",
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"temperature": 0.7,
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"max_response_output_tokens": 200,
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"client_secret": {
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"value": "ek_abc123",
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"expires_at": 1234567890
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}
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}
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