fix(voice): make the deadline line a neutral acknowledgement - #5549
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"I'll have that for you in a moment" states an outcome the turn cannot guarantee the shape of. The answer may follow a second later or thirty, and on a turn the caller expected to be trivial - "no, not now" - a promise of future delivery reads as the assistant having misunderstood the question rather than as it working. A short acknowledgement says the only thing actually known at that point: work is still going. Rotated so a caller who hits the deadline twice in one call does not hear the same words back, and each line ends in a full stop because the provider synthesises on sentence boundaries - an unterminated line is buffered rather than spoken, which is the same defect that kept the relay's fillers inaudible for eight seconds. The answer itself is unaffected: it still lands in chat and is read aloud while the call is up.
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No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉 ℹ️ Recent review info⚙️ Run configurationConfiguration used: Organization UI Review profile: CHILL Plan: Pro Plus Run ID: 📒 Files selected for processing (1)
🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (1)
📝 WalkthroughWalkthroughThe voice handoff now rotates through four sentence-terminated phrases. An atomic cursor selects each phrase per turn. Timeout handoffs use the selector, and tests validate formatting and consecutive rotation. ChangesVoice handoff rotation
Estimated code review effort: 2 (Simple) | ~10 minutes Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to This is a localized change to the acknowledgement spoken while a response is still being prepared, with no API or data-surface changes; no actionable merge-blocking risk remains beyond normal checks and review. Poem
🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5✅ Passed checks (5 passed)
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Actionable comments posted: 2
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Inline comments:
In `@src/openhuman/voice/realtime_harness.rs`:
- Line 919: Update the handoff-line validation to reject ASCII ellipses,
including “...” and repeated periods, in addition to the existing U+2026 check.
Preserve the other line-format assertions.
- Line 86: Replace the “Almost there. ” phrase in the realtime harness selector
with a status-only sentence such as “I am working on it. ”, avoiding any
implication that the turn is nearly complete or promising a response timeline or
outcome.
🪄 Autofix
Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:
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ℹ️ Review info
⚙️ Run configuration
Configuration used: Organization UI
Review profile: CHILL
Plan: Pro Plus
Run ID: bba091ef-ba1b-46cc-a655-9f41176d5da0
📒 Files selected for processing (1)
src/openhuman/voice/realtime_harness.rs
Review caught that "Almost there." undoes the point of the change. The turn has no evidence it is nearly done - it may be blocked, or thirty seconds from an answer - so the phrase promises progress the same way the line it replaced promised delivery. "Still going." states only what is known. The no-ellipsis assertion rejected U+2026 but not "...", so "Still on it... " passed the period and trailing-space checks while breaking the contract the test exists to hold. Verified the strengthened form fails on exactly that input.
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Heads-up on the red check, since it is not from this branch.
The ratchet and the calibration disagree:
Two crates were shed and the limits file was updated, but the hardcoded expectation in the workflow was not. This diff is a string constant inside a |
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Approving. The reasoning is sound and the change is small and reversible.
The point that earns this PR is the one about sentence termination: each line ending in a full stop is not a style choice but a correctness requirement, because the provider segments on sentence boundaries and an unterminated line gets buffered rather than spoken. every_handoff_line_is_a_terminated_sentence pins exactly that, including the ellipsis case in both ASCII and … forms. That is the right test to have written — it is the defect from backend#1275 recurring in a new place, and it would have been silent.
Three notes, none blocking.
1. The PR description does not match the code. The summary lists the lines as:
"Still on it.","Almost there.","Still working on it.","Bear with me."
but VOICE_HANDOFF_LINES actually contains "Still going." where the description says "Almost there.". The code is the better version of the two — "Almost there." is a proximity claim the turn cannot back up, which is the same class of problem as the "I'll have that for you in a moment" line you are removing. So keep the code and fix the description.
2. handoff_lines_rotate is a latent flake, though not one today. VOICE_HANDOFF_CURSOR is a process-global static, and Rust runs a test binary's tests on parallel threads. The test does two fetch_adds and asserts they differ:
let first = next_handoff_line();
let second = next_handoff_line();
assert_ne!(first, second);That is safe right now only because this is the sole test touching the cursor. If a future test calls next_handoff_line() and happens to interleave three times between these two reads, the cursor advances by 4, wraps, and first == second — a rare, genuinely confusing red. Cheap to make robust: collect VOICE_HANDOFF_LINES.len() consecutive calls from a locally-owned cursor, or assert on an index helper rather than the global.
3. Global rather than per-call cursor. The cursor is shared across sessions, so two concurrent calls interleave their lines. The stated goal — consecutive lines within a call differ — still holds, so this is fine; just noting it is a deliberate simplification rather than an oversight.
On the red check: Rust Feature-Gate Smoke (gates off) is failing for a reason that has nothing to do with this PR. The tests pass (977 passed, 0 failed); the job dies later at the dependency-graph ratchet:
dep-sim: FAIL — expected 281 names, got 279
main is currently red with the identical failure (CI Lite run 31780537171), as are unrelated open PRs. .github/workflows/ci-lite.yml:518 still pins --expect-names 281 after the graph lost two names. That ratchet needs bumping to 279 on main — worth a separate PR, not yours to carry.
Merge ordering: this and #5550 both rewrite the doc block above VOICE_HANDOFF_LINE and both insert a test at the same anchor in mod tests, so they will conflict — whichever lands second needs a rebase.
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The red check here is Rust Feature-Gate Smoke (gates off), and it's not from this PR — it's a pre-existing break on Every test in that job passes; the step exits 1 later, on the dependency-count guard:
Evidence it's on
Fix belongs on |
How this change flows1 changed behaviour across 10 relationships. 6 surrounding behaviours are shown (60 graph nodes walked). 25 further behaviours left out to keep the diagram readable. flowchart LR
n0["handle_voice_harness_turn<br/>changed"]:::changed
n1["Value"]:::impacted
n2["deliver_voice_failure_to_chat"]:::impacted
n3["deliver_voice_result_to_chat"]:::impacted
n4["messages_to_history_pairs"]:::impacted
n5["openhuman"]:::impacted
n6["AgentProgress"]:::impacted
n0 -->|uses| n1
n0 -->|calls| n2
n0 -->|calls| n3
n0 -->|uses| n6
n2 -->|uses| n5
n3 -->|calls| n2
n3 -->|uses| n5
n4 -->|uses| n1
n6 -->|uses| n1
n6 -->|uses| n5
classDef changed fill:#0d4429,stroke:#238636,color:#e6edf3
classDef impacted fill:#161b22,stroke:#6e7681,color:#c9d1d9
classDef flagged fill:#5a1e02,stroke:#d93f0b,color:#ffffff
classDef blocking fill:#67060c,stroke:#f85149,color:#ffffff
Green: changed behaviour. Grey: surrounding behaviour. Arrows name the call, use, implementation, or test relationship. Orange: has findings. Red: has a finding that blocks the merge. |
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priority: p3
Resolves the realtime_harness.rs conflict with tinyhumansai#5549 (merged as 23c08c9). Both sides are additive and independent: this branch's directive test and main's handoff-line tests, plus two doc paragraphs that describe different halves of the same deadline path. Kept all three tests and both paragraphs.
2 participants
Summary
"I'll have that for you in a moment."with a rotated neutral acknowledgement ("Still on it.","Almost there.","Still working on it.","Bear with me.").Problem
Two things were wrong with the line, one of them user-reported.
It promises an outcome the turn cannot guarantee the shape of. The deferred answer may follow a second later or thirty. On a turn the caller expected to be trivial — a real session had the user say "No, not as now" and hear "I'll have that for you in a moment." — a promise of future delivery reads as the assistant having misunderstood the question rather than as it working on an answer.
It duplicates what the relay already says. The relay speaks an opener ("On it.") at 700ms. A second, longer promise at the 8s mark adds no information the caller does not already have.
Solution
A short acknowledgement stating the only thing actually known at that point: work is still going.
Rotated per turn so a caller who hits the deadline twice in one call does not hear the same words back. Each line ends in a full stop deliberately — the provider synthesises on sentence boundaries, so an unterminated line is buffered rather than spoken. That is the same defect that kept the relay's fillers inaudible for eight seconds (backend#1275), and it would silently apply here too.
Submission Checklist
N/A: behaviour-only change## Related—N/A: no matrix rows affectedN/A: no release-cut surface changeCloses #NNN— see## RelatedImpact
Desktop only; spoken copy on one branch. No API, schema, or storage change.
This does not make anything faster. It changes what the caller hears while waiting. The wait itself is the desktop rebuilding its orchestrator on every turn — config load, tool registry, integration catalogue — before the first model token, which is why even a trivial turn crosses the 8s ack deadline. That remains the substantive fix and is not addressed here.
Testing
GGML_NATIVE=OFF cargo test --features voice --lib openhuman::voice::realtime_harness— 16 passedcargo clippy --features voice --lib,cargo fmt --checkcleanRelated
Closes #5551
Relates to #5399. Pairs with tinyhumansai/backend#1275.
Summary by CodeRabbit
Enhancements
Tests