Vox RTC Server for Elixir

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vox_rtc_server lets a trusted Elixir service create and control Vox-hosted WebRTC conversations over Vox's native gRPC API.

Vox remains responsible for WebRTC media, VAD, end-of-utterance detection, turn state, interruption handling, STT, TTS, and audio playout. The SDK owns only the gRPC connection and one ordered bidirectional control stream per RTC session.

This package does not use PondSocket and does not implement application-user authentication. Your application keeps its existing Plug, Phoenix, session, cookie, or JWT boundary. The api_key option is only the trusted credential used by the application server when calling Vox.

Installation

Add the package to mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:vox_rtc_server, "~> 0.1.0"}
  ]
end

Supervision

Start one client for each Vox deployment:

children = [
  {VoxRtcServer.Client,
   name: MyApp.Vox,
   target: "dns://vox-service.vox.svc.cluster.local:9090",
   api_key: System.fetch_env!("VOX_API_KEY")}
]

Supervisor.start_link(children, strategy: :one_for_one)

The target is the gRPC endpoint, not Vox's HTTP port. Omit api_key only when the Vox deployment does not require API authentication. Supply gRPC connection options through connect_options, including a GRPC.Credential for TLS. The SDK uses gRPC's Mint adapter by default; pass an explicit :adapter only when your application deliberately uses another supported transport.

Controlled RTC session

Create a session from trusted server code:

alias VoxRtcServer.{Client, Session, SessionConfig}

{:ok, bootstrap, session} =
  Client.create_controlled_session(MyApp.Vox)

:ok =
  Session.configure(session, %SessionConfig{
    stt_model: "parakeet-stt:tdt-0.6b-v3",
    tts_model: "kokoro-tts:v1.0",
    voice: "af_heart",
    turn_profile: "browser_default"
  })

bootstrap contains the session id, expiry, attach TTL, and public ICE server configuration. Return only the fields your browser signaling route needs. Do not return the Vox API key or gRPC endpoint to the browser.

The caller is subscribed automatically. Incoming events arrive as ordinary Elixir messages:

receive do
  {:vox_rtc, ^session, %VoxRtcServer.Event{type: :transcript_completed} = event} ->
    transcript = event.payload.transcript
end

An application can explicitly manage subscriptions:

:ok = Session.subscribe(session, self())
:ok = Session.unsubscribe(session, self())

Full-trickle signaling

Forward the browser's offer and ICE candidates as they arrive. Candidate completion is an explicit :complete message; the SDK does not implement half-trickle or wait for ICE gathering to finish.

alias VoxRtcServer.{IceCandidate, Session, SessionDescription}

:ok =
  Session.send_offer(
    session,
    %SessionDescription{type: "offer", sdp: browser_offer_sdp}
  )

:ok =
  Session.send_ice_candidate(session, %IceCandidate{
    candidate: candidate,
    sdp_mid: sdp_mid,
    sdp_m_line_index: sdp_m_line_index,
    username_fragment: username_fragment
  })

:ok = Session.send_ice_candidate(session, :complete)

Vox answers through :answer, :ice_candidate, and :ice_candidates_complete events. Your application forwards those signaling messages to its browser connection. Media then flows directly between the browser and Vox; it does not pass through the Elixir application.

Streaming a response

Text can be appended incrementally as an LLM generates it:

alias VoxRtcServer.{ResponseOptions, Session}

options = %ResponseOptions{allow_interruptions: true}

:ok = Session.start_response(session, options)
:ok = Session.append_response_text(session, "The first generated phrase", options)
:ok = Session.append_response_text(session, " and the next phrase.", options)
:ok = Session.commit_response(session)

Use cancel_response/1 to cancel an active response and replace_response_text/3 when the complete text must replace the current buffer.

Lifecycle

The session process:

  • sends attach as the first control-stream message;
  • serializes all signaling and response writes on that stream;
  • monitors its owning client and subscribers;
  • cancels failed streams;
  • closes its stream when the owner or caller closes;
  • never restarts a completed session.

Call Session.close/2 when an application call ends and Client.close/1 during an intentional client shutdown. Supervision shutdown also closes owned sessions and the gRPC channel.

Contract source

Generated protobuf and gRPC modules live under lib/generated. They are generated from priv/proto/vox.proto, copied from Vox's canonical proto/vox.proto. The public SDK wraps those generated modules so application code does not have to construct control-stream envelopes directly.