Stream realtime TTS audio as it is synthesized

services/athena-realtime-voice/README.md

@@ -12,6 +12,13 @@ WebRTC; Athena transcribes it; the service asks OpenClaw to run
 connection. This is a half-duplex prototype. Barge-in and remote-network TURN
 support are not implemented.
 
+For replies, the bridge consumes Athena's existing
+`/v1/audio/speech/pcm-stream` endpoint (24 kHz mono PCM) and enqueues audio
+frames as they arrive. Playback can start before Qwen finishes synthesizing a
+long reply. The bounded queue applies backpressure instead of truncating long
+audio, and the next turn waits until all frames have played. The two-turn
+WebRTC test verifies that audio begins before the fake PCM stream finishes.
+
 The bridge announces each committed user audio item before sending its completed
 transcript with the same item ID. OpenClaw requires that sequence to persist the
 transcript; omitting the item caused “Realtime transcript refers to an unknown

services/athena-realtime-voice/server.py

@@ -137,27 +137,30 @@ class SpeechTrack(MediaStreamTrack):
     def __init__(self):
         super().__init__()
         self._queue: asyncio.Queue[bytes] = asyncio.Queue(maxsize=2000)
-        self._pending = bytearray()
+        self._frames_enqueued = 0
+        self._frames_played = 0
         self._pts = 0
         self._start = time.monotonic()
 
-    def enqueue(self, pcm: bytes) -> None:
+    async def enqueue(self, pcm: bytes) -> int:
-        for offset in range(0, len(pcm), FRAME_SAMPLES * 2):
+        if len(pcm) != FRAME_SAMPLES * 2:
-            try:
+            raise ValueError("SpeechTrack expects one complete audio frame")
-                self._queue.put_nowait(pcm[offset : offset + FRAME_SAMPLES * 2])
+        await self._queue.put(pcm)
-            except asyncio.QueueFull:
+        self._frames_enqueued += 1
-                break
+        return self._frames_enqueued
+
+    async def wait_played(self, target: int) -> None:
+        while self._frames_played < target:
+            await asyncio.sleep(0.02)
+        await asyncio.sleep(0.2)
 
     async def recv(self) -> AudioFrame:
         await asyncio.sleep(max(0, self._start + self._pts / SAMPLE_RATE - time.monotonic()))
-        if not self._pending:
         try:
-                self._pending.extend(self._queue.get_nowait())
+            chunk = self._queue.get_nowait()
+            self._frames_played += 1
         except asyncio.QueueEmpty:
-                pass
+            chunk = b"\x00" * FRAME_SAMPLES * 2
-        chunk = bytes(self._pending[: FRAME_SAMPLES * 2])
-        del self._pending[: FRAME_SAMPLES * 2]
-        chunk = chunk.ljust(FRAME_SAMPLES * 2, b"\x00")
         frame = AudioFrame.from_ndarray(
             np.frombuffer(chunk, dtype="<i2").reshape(1, FRAME_SAMPLES),
             format="s16", layout="mono",
@@ -331,14 +334,12 @@ class RealtimeSession:
             logger.info("speaking response_id=%s", response_id)
             self.emit({"type": "response.created", "response": {"id": response_id}})
             async with self.http.post(
-                os.environ["ATHENA_API_BASE_URL"].rstrip("/") + "/audio/speech",
+                os.environ["ATHENA_API_BASE_URL"].rstrip("/") + "/audio/speech/pcm-stream",
                 headers={"Content-Type": "application/json", **self.auth_headers()},
                 json={"input": text, "voice": os.environ.get("TTS_VOICE", "alloy"),
-                      "response_format": "wav"}, timeout=120,
+                      "chunk_size": 4}, timeout=120,
             ) as response:
                 response.raise_for_status()
-                pcm = read_wav(await response.read())
-            self.track.enqueue(pcm)
                 item = {"id": item_id, "type": "message", "role": "assistant",
                         "status": "completed"}
                 self.emit({"type": "conversation.item.created", "item": item,
@@ -346,8 +347,22 @@ class RealtimeSession:
                 self.last_item_id = item_id
                 self.emit({"type": "response.output_audio_transcript.done",
                            "item_id": item_id, "transcript": text})
-            # Keep half-duplex active until the queued audio has actually played.
+                pending = bytearray()
-            await asyncio.sleep(len(pcm) / (SAMPLE_RATE * 2) + 0.2)
+                target = 0
+                frame_bytes = FRAME_SAMPLES * 2
+                async for chunk in response.content.iter_chunked(16384):
+                    pending.extend(chunk)
+                    while len(pending) >= frame_bytes:
+                        target = await self.track.enqueue(bytes(pending[:frame_bytes]))
+                        del pending[:frame_bytes]
+                if len(pending) % 2:
+                    raise ValueError("Athena TTS returned incomplete PCM samples")
+                if pending:
+                    target = await self.track.enqueue(bytes(pending).ljust(frame_bytes, b"\0"))
+                if not target:
+                    raise ValueError("Athena TTS returned no audio")
+            # Keep half-duplex active until the streamed audio has played.
+            await self.track.wait_played(target)
             self.emit({"type": "conversation.item.done", "item": item})
             self.emit({"type": "response.done", "response": {
                 "id": response_id, "status": "completed", "output": [item],

services/athena-realtime-voice/test_smoke.py

@@ -116,12 +116,19 @@ class VoiceSmokeTest(unittest.IsolatedAsyncioTestCase):
         async def tts(request):
             body = await request.json()
             self.assertEqual(body["input"], "Hallo zurück")
-            return web.Response(body=make_wav((6000).to_bytes(2, "little", signed=True) * SAMPLE_RATE),
+            self.assertEqual(body["chunk_size"], 4)
-                                content_type="audio/wav")
+            stream = web.StreamResponse(headers={"Content-Type": "application/octet-stream"})
+            await stream.prepare(request)
+            pcm = (6000).to_bytes(2, "little", signed=True) * SAMPLE_RATE
+            await stream.write(pcm[:SAMPLE_RATE])
+            await asyncio.wait_for(audio_received.wait(), timeout=3)
+            await stream.write(pcm[SAMPLE_RATE:])
+            await stream.write_eof()
+            return stream
 
         fake = web.Application()
         fake.router.add_post("/audio/transcriptions", stt)
-        fake.router.add_post("/audio/speech", tts)
+        fake.router.add_post("/audio/speech/pcm-stream", tts)
         fake_runner, fake_url = await serve(fake)
         os.environ.update({
             "ATHENA_TALK_REALTIME_SECRET": "test-secret-" * 4,