twilio example: jittering/skip sound in the beginning of every word

[lvsun]

Please read this first

• Have you read the docs?Agents SDK docs -> yes
• Have you searched for related issues? Others may have faced similar issues. -> yes

Describe the bug

using the default example "/examples/realtime/twilio", the returned voice always has a jittering/skip sound in the beginning of every word

Debug information

• Agents SDK version: 0.3.3
• Python version: 3.13.7

Repro steps

1. download the example of twilio realtime in this repo: https://github.com/openai/openai-agents-python/tree/main/examples/realtime/twilio
2. install dependencies
3. start the server with uv run server.py and the ngrok according to the README.md file
4. change the twilio webhook to the specific one
5. call the twilio number
6. voice returned always has a jittering/skip sound in the begining of every word

Expected behavior

no jittering/skip sound.

Notes

I also tested without this python agents-sdk, the voice has no such issue.
For comparison, I also used the openai-agents-js sdk's example, and its voice is clear as expected.

I found this issue during the implmentation of an voice agent, I thought it was my code issue, but then I tested the example here, it already has the same sound issue.

[gn00295120]

Hi @lvsun! 👋

Good news - this issue has been identified and fixed in PR #1926!

Root Cause

The jittering/skipping sound you're experiencing is caused by insufficient audio buffering. The Twilio example was sending very small audio chunks (often just a few bytes) directly to Twilio as they arrived from OpenAI, which caused choppy/jittery playback.

Solution

PR #1926 implements symmetrical buffering for outgoing audio (OpenAI → Twilio), matching the existing 50ms buffering strategy for incoming audio (Twilio → OpenAI):

• Buffers small audio chunks from OpenAI before sending to Twilio
• Flushes when buffer reaches 50ms worth of audio (400 bytes at 8kHz)
• Includes periodic flush for any remaining buffered data

Try It Out

You can test the fix by checking out the PR branch:

git fetch origin pull/1926/head:fix-twilio-audio-jittering
git checkout fix-twilio-audio-jittering
uv run server.py

The audio should now be much smoother without the jittering at word boundaries!

Let me know if this resolves the issue for you. Once confirmed, we can close this issue when the PR is merged.

[seratch]

I tried to reproduce the same situation using Twilio phone calls but to me, the audio quality didn't have any issues. Also, I didn't see any difference from the TS example.