Transcription API

Create a new job

POST https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2/jobs

Authentication

bearerAuth Authorization: Bearer <token>
Your API key, or a temporary key (JWT).

Query parameters

wait integer optional: Note: Only available on SaaS on Cloud. Number of seconds to block until the job reaches a terminal state before responding. Capped server-side. When set, the response includes a status field reporting the outcome, and on done the transcript is embedded under the requested format key when available. When omitted, the request returns as soon as the job is created and status is not included.
format "json-v2" | "txt" | "srt" optional: Note: Only available on SaaS on Cloud, and only applies when wait is set. Format of the transcript embedded in the response when the job finishes within wait. Defaults to json-v2.

Header parameters

X-SM-Processing-Data string optional: Note: Only available for on-prem JSON dictionary of processing settings for the job worker. Currently supports parallel_engines (integer), which controls the number of engines the worker can use in parallel for this job, and user_id (string), which is the user id for this job. Example: {"parallel_engines": 4}

Request body

required

multipart/form-data

config JobConfig: The job's configuration, sent as a JSON string.
type JobType"transcription"
fetch_data DataFetchConfig optional
url string
auth_headers string[] optional: A list of additional headers to be added to the input fetch request when using http or https. This is intended to support authentication or authorization, for example by supplying an OAuth2 bearer token.
fetch_text DataFetchConfig optional
url string
auth_headers string[] optional: A list of additional headers to be added to the input fetch request when using http or https. This is intended to support authentication or authorization, for example by supplying an OAuth2 bearer token.
transcription_config TranscriptionConfig optional
language string: Language model to process the audio input, normally specified as an ISO language code
domain string optional: Request a specialized model based on 'language' but optimized for a particular field, e.g. 'finance' or 'medical'.
output_locale string optional: Language locale to be used when generating the transcription output, normally specified as an ISO language code
model Model"standard""enhanced""melia-1" optional: Specific model to use in transcription (previously called operating point).
operating_point OperatingPoint"standard""enhanced""melia-1" optional
additional_vocab object[]≤ 20000 items optional: List of custom words or phrases that should be recognized. Alternative pronunciations can be specified to aid recognition.
content string
sounds_like string[] optional
punctuation_overrides object optional: Control punctuation settings.
sensitivity number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 1 optional: Ranges between zero and one. Higher values will produce more punctuation. The default is 0.5.
permitted_marks string[] optional: The punctuation marks which the client is prepared to accept in transcription output, or the special value 'all' (the default). Unsupported marks are ignored. This value is used to guide the transcription process.
diarization "none" | "speaker" | "channel" optional: Specify whether speaker or channel labels are added to the transcript. The default is none.

none: no speaker or channel labels are added.

speaker: speaker attribution is performed based on acoustic matching; all input channels are mixed into a single stream for processing.

channel: multiple input channels are processed individually and collated into a single transcript.
channel_diarization_labels string[] optional: Transcript labels to use when using collating separate input channels.
enable_entities boolean optional: Include additional 'entity' objects in the transcription results (e.g. dates, numbers) and their original spoken form. These entities are interleaved with other types of results. The concatenation of these words is represented as a single entity with the concatenated written form present in the 'content' field. The entities contain a 'spoken_form' field, which can be used in place of the corresponding 'word' type results, in case a spoken form is preferred to a written form. They also contain a 'written_form', which can be used instead of the entity, if you want a breakdown of the words without spaces. They can still contain non-breaking spaces and other special whitespace characters, as they are considered part of the word for the formatting output. In case of a written_form, the individual word times are estimated and might not be accurate if the order of the words in the written form does not correspond to the order they were actually spoken (such as 'one hundred million dollars' and '$100 million').
max_delay_mode "fixed" | "flexible" optional: Whether or not to enable flexible endpointing and allow the entity to continue to be spoken.
audio_filtering_config object optional: Configuration for limiting the transcription of quiet audio.
volume_threshold number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 100 optional: Controls the lower limit of audio volume at which speech and audio events will be transcribed. If the volume limit is very low, then most sound will be passed to the speech recognition engine. Higher numbers will cut out increasing amounts of sound.
transcript_filtering_config object optional: Configuration for applying filtering to the transcription
remove_disfluencies boolean optional: If true, words that are identified as disfluencies will be removed from the transcript. If false (default), they are tagged in the transcript as 'disfluency'.
replacements object[] optional: An array of objects defining custom replacements. Each replacement contains a pair of strings: the text to find from and the text to replace it with to.
from string
to string
speaker_diarization_config object optional: Configuration for speaker diarization
prefer_current_speaker boolean optional: If true, the algorithm will prefer to stay with the current active speaker if it is a close enough match, even if other speakers may be closer. This is useful for cases where we can flip incorrectly between similar speakers during a single speaker section.
speaker_sensitivity number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 1 optional: Controls how sensitive the algorithm is in terms of keeping similar speakers separate, as opposed to combining them into a single speaker. Higher values will typically lead to more speakers, as the degree of difference between speakers in order to allow them to remain distinct will be lower. A lower value for this parameter will conversely guide the algorithm towards being less sensitive in terms of retaining similar speakers, and as such may lead to fewer speakers overall. The default is 0.5.
get_speakers boolean optional: If true, speaker identifiers will be returned at the end of transcript.
speakers SpeakersInputItem[] optional: Use this option to provide speaker labels linked to their speaker identifiers. When passed, the transcription system will tag spoken words in the transcript with the provided speaker labels whenever any of the specified speakers is detected in the audio. A maximum of 50 speakers identifiers across all speakers can be provided.
label string≥ 1 characters: Speaker label, which must not match the format used internally (e.g. S1, S2, etc)
speaker_identifiers Array<string<bytes>>≥ 1 itemsunique items
notification_config NotificationConfig[] optional
url string: The url to which a notification message will be sent upon completion of the job. The job id and status are added as query parameters, and any combination of the job inputs and outputs can be included by listing them in contents.

If contents is empty, the body of the request will be empty.

If only one item is listed, it will be sent as the body of the request with Content-Type set to an appropriate value such as application/octet-stream or application/json.

If multiple items are listed they will be sent as named file attachments using the multipart content type.

If contents is not specified, the transcript item will be sent as a file attachment named data_file, for backwards compatibility.

If the job was rejected or failed during processing, that will be indicated by the status, and any output items that are not available as a result will be omitted. The body formatting rules will still be followed as if all items were available.

The user-agent header is set to Speechmatics-API/2.0, or Speechmatics API V2 in older API versions.
contents enum[] optional: Specifies a list of items to be attached to the notification message. When multiple items are requested, they are included as named file attachments.
method "post" | "put" optional: The method to be used with http and https urls. The default is post.
auth_headers string[] optional: A list of additional headers to be added to the notification request when using http or https. This is intended to support authentication or authorization, for example by supplying an OAuth2 bearer token.
tracking TrackingData optional
title string optional: The title of the job.
reference string optional: External system reference.
tags string[] optional
details object optional: Customer-defined JSON structure.
output_config OutputConfig optional
srt_overrides object optional: Parameters that override default values of srt conversion. max_line_length: sets maximum count of characters per subtitle line including white space. max_lines: sets maximum count of lines in a subtitle section.
max_line_length integer optional
max_lines integer optional
translation_config TranslationConfig optional
target_languages string[]≤ 5 items
language_identification_config LanguageIdentificationConfig optional
expected_languages string[] optional
low_confidence_action "allow" | "reject" | "use_default_language" optional: Action to take if all of the predicted languages are below the confidence threshold
default_language string optional
summarization_config SummarizationConfig optional: Configuration options for summarization.
content_type "auto" | "informative" | "conversational" optional: Choose from three options:

conversational - Best suited for dialogues involving multiple participants, such as calls, meetings or discussions. It focuses on summarizing key points of the conversation.

informative - Recommended for more structured information delivered by one or more people, making it ideal for videos, podcasts, lectures, and presentations.

auto - Automatically selects the most appropriate content type based on an analysis of the transcript.
summary_length "brief" | "detailed"default: "brief" optional: Determines the depth of the summary:

brief - Provides a succinct summary, condensing the content into just a few sentences.

detailed - Provide a longer, structured summary. For conversational content, it includes key topics and a summary of the entire conversation. For informative content, it logically divides the audio into sections and provides a summary for each.
summary_type "paragraphs" | "bullets" optional
sentiment_analysis_config SentimentAnalysisConfig optional
topic_detection_config TopicDetectionConfig optional
topics string[] optional
auto_chapters_config AutoChaptersConfig optional
audio_events_config AudioEventsConfig optional
types string[] optional
data_file string<binary> optional: The data file to be processed. Alternatively the data file can be fetched from a url specified in JobConfig.

Responses

application/json application/vnd.speechmatics.v2+json

id string: The unique ID assigned to the job. Keep a record of this for later retrieval of your completed job.
status enumone of optional: Note: Only available on SaaS on Cloud. Present only when the wait query parameter is set. Reports the outcome of the wait, which is distinct from the job lifecycle status returned by GET /jobs/{jobid}.
"created": The job was created and is still running, or wait elapsed before it finished.
"done": The job finished; the transcript is embedded under the requested format key when available.
"rejected": The job could not be processed.
"deleted": The job was deleted before it could finish.
json-v2 RetrieveTranscriptResponse optional
format string: Speechmatics JSON transcript format version number.
job JobInfo: Summary information about an ASR job, to support identification and tracking.
created_at string<date-time>: The UTC date time the job was created.
data_name string: Name of data file submitted for job.
duration integer≥ 0: The data file audio duration (in seconds).
id string: The unique id assigned to the job.
tracking TrackingData optional
title string optional: The title of the job.
reference string optional: External system reference.
tags string[] optional
details object optional: Customer-defined JSON structure.
metadata RecognitionMetadata: Summary information about the output from an ASR job, comprising the job type and configuration parameters used when generating the output.
created_at string<date-time>: The UTC date time the transcription output was created.
type JobType"transcription"
transcription_config TranscriptionConfig optional
language string: Language model to process the audio input, normally specified as an ISO language code
domain string optional: Request a specialized model based on 'language' but optimized for a particular field, e.g. 'finance' or 'medical'.
output_locale string optional: Language locale to be used when generating the transcription output, normally specified as an ISO language code
model Model"standard""enhanced""melia-1" optional: Specific model to use in transcription (previously called operating point).
operating_point OperatingPoint"standard""enhanced""melia-1" optional
additional_vocab object[]≤ 20000 items optional: List of custom words or phrases that should be recognized. Alternative pronunciations can be specified to aid recognition.
content string
sounds_like string[] optional
punctuation_overrides object optional: Control punctuation settings.
sensitivity number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 1 optional: Ranges between zero and one. Higher values will produce more punctuation. The default is 0.5.
permitted_marks string[] optional: The punctuation marks which the client is prepared to accept in transcription output, or the special value 'all' (the default). Unsupported marks are ignored. This value is used to guide the transcription process.
diarization "none" | "speaker" | "channel" optional: Specify whether speaker or channel labels are added to the transcript. The default is none.

none: no speaker or channel labels are added.

speaker: speaker attribution is performed based on acoustic matching; all input channels are mixed into a single stream for processing.

channel: multiple input channels are processed individually and collated into a single transcript.
channel_diarization_labels string[] optional: Transcript labels to use when using collating separate input channels.
enable_entities boolean optional: Include additional 'entity' objects in the transcription results (e.g. dates, numbers) and their original spoken form. These entities are interleaved with other types of results. The concatenation of these words is represented as a single entity with the concatenated written form present in the 'content' field. The entities contain a 'spoken_form' field, which can be used in place of the corresponding 'word' type results, in case a spoken form is preferred to a written form. They also contain a 'written_form', which can be used instead of the entity, if you want a breakdown of the words without spaces. They can still contain non-breaking spaces and other special whitespace characters, as they are considered part of the word for the formatting output. In case of a written_form, the individual word times are estimated and might not be accurate if the order of the words in the written form does not correspond to the order they were actually spoken (such as 'one hundred million dollars' and '$100 million').
max_delay_mode "fixed" | "flexible" optional: Whether or not to enable flexible endpointing and allow the entity to continue to be spoken.
audio_filtering_config object optional: Configuration for limiting the transcription of quiet audio.
volume_threshold number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 100 optional: Controls the lower limit of audio volume at which speech and audio events will be transcribed. If the volume limit is very low, then most sound will be passed to the speech recognition engine. Higher numbers will cut out increasing amounts of sound.
transcript_filtering_config object optional: Configuration for applying filtering to the transcription
remove_disfluencies boolean optional: If true, words that are identified as disfluencies will be removed from the transcript. If false (default), they are tagged in the transcript as 'disfluency'.
replacements object[] optional: An array of objects defining custom replacements. Each replacement contains a pair of strings: the text to find from and the text to replace it with to.
from string
to string
speaker_diarization_config object optional: Configuration for speaker diarization
prefer_current_speaker boolean optional: If true, the algorithm will prefer to stay with the current active speaker if it is a close enough match, even if other speakers may be closer. This is useful for cases where we can flip incorrectly between similar speakers during a single speaker section.
speaker_sensitivity number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 1 optional: Controls how sensitive the algorithm is in terms of keeping similar speakers separate, as opposed to combining them into a single speaker. Higher values will typically lead to more speakers, as the degree of difference between speakers in order to allow them to remain distinct will be lower. A lower value for this parameter will conversely guide the algorithm towards being less sensitive in terms of retaining similar speakers, and as such may lead to fewer speakers overall. The default is 0.5.
get_speakers boolean optional: If true, speaker identifiers will be returned at the end of transcript.
speakers SpeakersInputItem[] optional: Use this option to provide speaker labels linked to their speaker identifiers. When passed, the transcription system will tag spoken words in the transcript with the provided speaker labels whenever any of the specified speakers is detected in the audio. A maximum of 50 speakers identifiers across all speakers can be provided.
label string≥ 1 characters: Speaker label, which must not match the format used internally (e.g. S1, S2, etc)
speaker_identifiers Array<string<bytes>>≥ 1 itemsunique items
translation_errors TranslationError[] optional: List of errors that occurred in the translation stage.
type "translation_failed" | "unsupported_translation_pair" optional
message string optional: Human readable error message
summarization_errors SummarizationError[] optional: List of errors that occurred in the summarization stage.
type "summarization_failed" | "unsupported_language" optional
message string optional: Human readable error message
sentiment_analysis_errors SentimentAnalysisError[] optional: List of errors that occurred in the sentiment analysis stage.
type "sentiment_analysis_failed" | "unsupported_language" optional
message string optional: Human readable error message
topic_detection_errors TopicDetectionError[] optional: List of errors that occurred in the topic detection stage.
type "topic_detection_failed" | "unsupported_list_of_topics" | "unsupported_language" optional
message string optional: Human readable error message
auto_chapters_errors AutoChaptersResultError[] optional: List of errors that occurred in the auto chapters stage.
type "auto_chapters_failed" | "unsupported_language" optional
message string optional: Human readable error message
output_config OutputConfig optional
srt_overrides object optional: Parameters that override default values of srt conversion. max_line_length: sets maximum count of characters per subtitle line including white space. max_lines: sets maximum count of lines in a subtitle section.
max_line_length integer optional
max_lines integer optional
language_pack_info LanguagePackInfo optional: Properties of the language pack.
language_description string optional: Full descriptive name of the language, e.g. 'Japanese'.
word_delimiter string: The character to use to separate words.
writing_direction "left-to-right" | "right-to-left" optional: The direction that words in the language should be written and read in.
itn boolean optional: Whether or not ITN (inverse text normalization) is available for the language pack.
adapted boolean optional: Whether or not language model adaptation has been applied to the language pack.
language_identification LanguageIdentificationResult optional
results LanguageIdentificationResultItem[] optional
alternatives LanguageIdentificationResultAlternative[] optional
language string optional
confidence number optional
start_time number optional
end_time number optional
error enum"LOW_CONFIDENCE""UNEXPECTED_LANGUAGE""NO_SPEECH""FILE_UNREADABLE""OTHER" optional
message string optional
orchestrator_version string optional: Orchestrator version in PEP 440 Format or set to 'version_not_found' as default.
results RecognitionResult[]: An ASR job output item. The primary item types are word and punctuation. Other item types may be present, for example to provide semantic information of different forms.
channel string optional
start_time number<float>
end_time number<float>
volume number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 100 optional: An indication of the volume of audio across the time period the word was spoken.
is_eos boolean optional: Whether the punctuation mark is an end of sentence character. Only applies to punctuation marks.
type "word" | "punctuation" | "entity": New types of items may appear without being requested; unrecognized item types can be ignored.
written_form WrittenFormRecognitionResult[] optional: A WrittenFormRecognitionResult describes a simple object which consists solely of 'word' type entries with a start and end time. It can occur only inside the written_form property of a full RecognitionResult'
alternatives RecognitionAlternative[]: List of possible job output item values, ordered by likelihood.
content string
confidence number<float>
language string
display RecognitionDisplay optional
direction "ltr" | "rtl"
speaker string optional
tags string[] optional
end_time number<float>
start_time number<float>
type "word": What kind of object this is. See #/Definitions/RecognitionResult for definitions of the enums.
spoken_form SpokenFormRecognitionResult[] optional: A SpokenFormRecognitionResult describes a simple object which consists solely of 'word' or 'punctuation' type entries with a start and end time. It can occur only inside the spoken_form property of a full 'RecognitionResult'
alternatives RecognitionAlternative[]: List of possible job output item values, ordered by likelihood.
content string
confidence number<float>
language string
display RecognitionDisplay optional
direction "ltr" | "rtl"
speaker string optional
tags string[] optional
end_time number<float>
start_time number<float>
type "word" | "punctuation": What kind of object this is. See #/Definitions/RecognitionResult for definitions of the enums.
alternatives RecognitionAlternative[] optional: List of possible job output item values, ordered by likelihood.
content string
confidence number<float>
language string
display RecognitionDisplay optional
direction "ltr" | "rtl"
speaker string optional
tags string[] optional
attaches_to enum"previous""next""both""none" optional: Attachment direction of the punctuation mark. This only applies to punctuation marks. This information can be used to produce a well-formed text representation by placing the word_delimiter from language_pack_info on the correct side of the punctuation mark.
speakers SpeakersResultItem[] optional: List of unique speaker identifiers detected in the transcript.
label string≥ 1 characters: Speaker label.
speaker_identifiers Array<string<bytes>>≥ 1 itemsunique items
translations Record<string, TranslationSentence[]> optional: Translations of the transcript into other languages. It is a map of ISO language codes to arrays of translated sentences. Configured using translation_config.
[key: string] TranslationSentence[] optional
start_time number<float> optional
end_time number<float> optional
content string optional
speaker string optional
channel string optional
summary SummarizationResult optional: Summary of the transcript, configured using summarization_config.
content string optional
sentiment_analysis SentimentAnalysisResult optional: The main object that holds sentiment analysis data.
sentiment_analysis object optional: Holds the detailed sentiment analysis information.
segments SentimentSegment[] optional: An array of objects that represent a segment of text and its associated sentiment.
text string optional: Represents the transcript of the analysed segment
sentiment string optional: The assigned sentiment to the segment, which can be positive, neutral or negative
start_time number<float> optional: The timestamp corresponding to the beginning of the transcription segment
end_time number<float> optional: The timestamp corresponding to the end of the transcription segment
speaker string optional: The speaker label for the segment, if speaker diarization is enabled
channel string optional: The channel label for the segment, if channel diarization is enabled
confidence number<float,> optional: A confidence score in the range of 0-1, indicating the model's certainty in the predicted sentiment,
summary SentimentSummary optional: Holds overall sentiment information, as well as detailed per-speaker and per-channel sentiment data.
overall SentimentSummaryDetail optional: Holds the count of sentiment information grouped by positive, neutral and negative.
positive_count integer optional
negative_count integer optional
neutral_count integer optional
speakers SentimentSpeakerSummary[] optional: An array of objects that represent sentiment data for a specific speaker.
speaker string optional
positive_count integer optional
negative_count integer optional
neutral_count integer optional
channels SentimentChannelSummary[] optional: An array of objects that represent sentiment data for a specific channel.
channel string optional
positive_count integer optional
negative_count integer optional
neutral_count integer optional
topics TopicDetectionResult optional: Main object that holds topic detection results.
segments TopicDetectionSegment[] optional: An array of objects that represent a segment of text and its associated topic information.
text string optional
start_time number<float> optional
end_time number<float> optional
topics TopicDetectionSegmentTopic[] optional: Represents a topic and its associated information.
topic string optional
summary TopicDetectionSummary optional: Holds overall information on the topics detected.
overall TopicDetectionSummaryOverall optional: Holds the count of topics detected.
[key: string] integer optional
chapters AutoChaptersResult optional: An array of objects that represent summarized chapters of the transcript
title string optional: The auto-generated title for the chapter
summary string optional: An auto-generated paragraph-style, short summary of the chapter
start_time number optional: The start time of the chapter in the audio file
end_time number optional
audio_events AudioEventItem[] optional: Timestamped audio events, only set if audio_events_config is in the config
type string optional: Kind of audio event. E.g. music
start_time number<float> optional: Time (in seconds) at which the audio event starts
end_time number<float> optional: Time (in seconds) at which the audio event ends
confidence number<float> optional: Prediction confidence associated with this event
channel string optional: Input channel this event occurred on
audio_event_summary object optional: Summary statistics per event type, keyed by type, e.g. music
overall AudioEventSummary optional
[key: string] AudioEventSummaryItem optional: Summary statistics for this audio event type
total_duration number<float> optional: Total duration (in seconds) of all audio events of this type
count number optional: Number of events of this type
channels Record<string, AudioEventSummary> optional: Summary keyed by channel, only set if channel diarization is enabled
[key: string] AudioEventSummary optional
[key: string] AudioEventSummaryItem optional: Summary statistics for this audio event type
total_duration number<float> optional: Total duration (in seconds) of all audio events of this type
count number optional: Number of events of this type
txt string optional: Note: Only available on SaaS on Cloud. The transcript in plain text, embedded when status is done and format was txt. Best-effort: if absent, fetch it from GET /jobs/{jobid}/transcript.
srt string optional: Note: Only available on SaaS on Cloud. The transcript in SRT format, embedded when status is done and format was srt. Best-effort: if absent, fetch it from GET /jobs/{jobid}/transcript.

Request

import { openAsBlob } from "node:fs";
import { BatchClient } from "@speechmatics/batch-client";

const client = new BatchClient({ apiKey: "YOUR_API_KEY", appId: "my-app" });

// In a browser, pass a File from a file input instead.
const file = new File([await openAsBlob("example.wav")], "example.wav");

const { id } = await client.createTranscriptionJob(file, {
  transcription_config: { language: "en", model: "enhanced" },
});
console.log(id);

from speechmatics.batch import Client, TranscriptionConfig

with Client(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY") as client:
    job = client.submit_job(
        "example.wav",
        transcription_config=TranscriptionConfig(language="en", model="enhanced"),
    )
    print(job.id)

API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"

curl -L -X POST "https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2/jobs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${API_KEY}" \
  -F data_file=@example.wav \
  -F config='{"type": "transcription", "transcription_config": {"language": "en", "model": "enhanced"}}'

Responses

{
  "id": "dlbvi9xpzf"
}

{
  "code": 400,
  "error": "Job rejected",
  "detail": "Job config JSON is invalid"
}

{
  "code": 401,
  "error": "Permission Denied"
}

{
  "code": 403,
  "error": "Invalid or missing license"
}

{
  "code": 429,
  "error": "Max concurrent running jobs exceeded"
}

{
  "code": 500,
  "error": "Internal Server Error"
}