No More Mumbo Jumbo: Meet the OVOS Transcription Validator Plugin

Ever had your OpenVoiceOS assistant respond with a blank stare, or worse, confidently say something that had absolutely nothing to do with what you said? We've all been there. It’s like trying to reason with a sleep-deprived parrot: part amusing, mostly frustrating.

Well, get ready to reclaim your sanity. We're excited to introduce a new member of the OVOS ecosystem: the OVOS Transcription Validator Plugin, your new favorite gatekeeper for STT nonsense.

What's the Point?

Picture this: your assistant is a club bouncer for utterances. Every spoken phrase gets checked before it’s allowed into the VIP lounge of “Intent Handling.” If your transcription is incoherent, incomplete, or simply unhinged, the bouncer boots it right back to the sidewalk. No more "Potatoes stop green light now yes" turning on your kitchen lights. No more "Play the next song, but make it sound like a cat" confusing your music library.

This plugin ensures only sane, well-formed inputs move forward, drastically improving the assistant’s overall reliability.

Okay, But How?

Magic. Kidding. It’s just LLMs doing what they do best, judging you silently.

Here’s what actually happens:

You speak; the STT engine transcribes.
The plugin grabs the result and the language info.
It sends that to your configured LLM (local Ollama, OpenAI-compatible API, you name it).
The LLM replies: “Yup, that’s language” or “Nope, that's verbal spaghetti”.
If rejected, the utterance is dropped before it causes downstream chaos (you can even play a polite error beep or ask the user to repeat themselves).

LLMs for This? Really?

We hear you. It is a bit like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly. Validating a sentence isn’t rocket science, but it turns out rocket science is cheap and locally available now.

Yes, Large Language Models are arguably overkill for checking if "play music" is a coherent command. But the results are strong, and let’s face it: you’re probably already running an LLM somewhere just to decide which emoji to use.

Still, we acknowledge the irony. In an age of bloated "AI agents" managing other agents, this plugin fits right in. Yo dawg, I heard you like agents, so we added an agent to your agent to decide if it’s allowed to answer.

If you’re looking for lighter-weight alternatives, we’ve considered adding traditional rule-based validators too. But for now, if you’ve got the cycles, why not let the LLM earn its keep?

Get Started: Stop the Gibberish at the Gate

Want in? Getting started is easy. Visit the GitHub repo for installation instructions and configuration tips.

With the OVOS Transcription Validator Plugin, your assistant will stop mistaking scrambled speech for commands, and you’ll stop yelling at your microwave because it thought you said “set timer for forty giraffes.”

So, go forth and chat with your OpenVoiceOS assistant with renewed confidence! With the OVOS Transcription Validator Plugin, your conversations will be clearer, your commands more precise, and those moments of "What on Earth did I just say?!" will become a distant, funny memory.

Help Us Build Voice for Everyone

OpenVoiceOS is more than software, it’s a mission. If you believe voice assistants should be open, inclusive, and user-controlled, here’s how you can help:

💸 Donate: Help us fund development, infrastructure, and legal protection.
📣 Contribute Open Data: Share voice samples and transcriptions under open licenses.
🌍 Translate: Help make OVOS accessible in every language.

We're not building this for profit. We're building it for people. With your support, we can keep voice tech transparent, private, and community-owned.

👉 Support the project here