OpenVIP - Open Voice Interaction Protocol

OpenVIP is an open standard for transmitting voice interaction messages between applications, devices, and services.

Voice interaction = voice input + voice output. OpenVIP handles the full loop.

Why OpenVIP?

Voice assistants are everywhere, but there's no open standard for voice interaction. OpenVIP fills this gap:

• One format, many consumers — Send voice messages to any compatible system
• Transport agnostic — HTTP, WebSockets, MQTT (v1.0 uses HTTP/SSE)
• Simple core — Minimal required fields, maximum extensibility
• Best-effort — Unidirectional, fire-and-forget, simple enough for constrained devices
• Extensible — Structured metadata via x_ extension fields
• Observable — Built-in tracing via trace_id/parent_id (OpenTelemetry-style)

Quick Start

{
  "openvip": "1.0",
  "type": "transcription",
  "id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  "timestamp": "2026-02-06T10:30:00Z",
  "text": "Turn on the kitchen light",
  "language": "en",
  "confidence": 0.95
}

Specification

Document	Description
Protocol v1.0	Core message format
HTTP Binding	REST + SSE transport

Message Types

Type	Direction	Description
transcription	Engine → Agent	Transcribed text from speech-to-text
speech	Client → Engine	Text-to-speech request

Extension Fields

Messages can be enriched with x_ extension fields — structured JSON objects that carry metadata for domain-specific use cases.

Standard Extensions

Extension	Description
x_input	Text input behavior (submit, newline, trigger)
x_agent_switch	Agent routing (switch active agent)

{
  "openvip": "1.0",
  "type": "transcription",
  "id": "...",
  "timestamp": "...",
  "text": "fix the login bug",
  "x_input": {
    "submit": true,
    "trigger": "ok send",
    "confidence": 0.95
  }
}

Custom extensions use x_<vendor_name> prefix (e.g., x_bticino, x_telegram). See the protocol spec for details.

Tracing

Messages support OpenTelemetry-style tracing via optional fields:

Field	Description
trace_id	ID of the original message that started the chain
parent_id	ID of the message this one was derived from

This enables full observability without external tooling.

Examples

See the examples/ directory for complete message samples.

Schema

JSON Schema for validation: schema/v1.0.json

Implementations

Project	Language	Type	Description
Dictare	Python	Engine + Client	Reference implementation — voice layer for AI coding agents
openvip SDK	Python	Client SDK	Auto-generated from OpenAPI spec

Roadmap

v1.0 (Current)

• Core message format (transcription, speech)
• HTTP binding with SSE
• Extension fields (x_) with standard extensions
• Built-in tracing (trace_id, parent_id)

Planned

• Bidirectional communication
• WebSocket binding
• Authentication and authorization

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

This specification is licensed under the MIT License.

Trademarks

OpenVIP™ is a trademark of Sitlab Limited. The OpenVIP name and logo are © 2026 Sitlab Limited. The protocol specification is MIT licensed — anyone can implement it freely. The trademark protects the name and logo, not the technology.

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OpenVIP is an open project. Contributions welcome!