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Audio transcription agent

The audio-transcription-agent preset (backend/presets/020-audio-transcription-agent.yaml) fetches one recording, has it transcribed, and saves the result to the session as artifacts:

  • a transcript (WebVTT preferred) labelled site, shift and consent_basis;
  • a summary as a document with the same labels, whose parent is the transcript;
  • the raw audio, with the transcript as parent, only when the account has audio storage turned on. With it off, the deposit is refused with artifact_audio_storage_disabled and the run still succeeds.

Preloop does not transcribe and does not record. Both happen in an MCP server the operator registers under Tools.

Audio server contract

The preset expects a server named audio-mcp (the template variable audio_mcp_server) with two tools:

Tool Returns
get_audio(site, shift) MCP AudioContent {type: "audio", data, mimeType}
transcribe_audio(audio_ref) TextContent and/or an EmbeddedResource with mimeType: text/vtt (preferred) or text/plain

Preloop does not substitute variables inside tool allowlists. Either register your server as audio-mcp, or replace audio-mcp in the copied flow's servers and tools with your server's name. Tool names are changed the same way. "Recording from a device" means a server whose get_audio captures the audio; none ships with Preloop. The warehouse-sim fixture (scripts/fixtures/warehouse_sim) implements this contract for tests.

Tool results that pass through the Preloop gateway keep their content block types: AudioContent, EmbeddedResource and ResourceLink blocks reach the agent as they left the server (#1151), so the agent deposits them unchanged.

Running it

The preset is off and on demand. Copy it into the account, enable it, then start it from the console with a payload, or from another agent with the builtin run_flow tool:

run_flow(flow="audio-transcription-agent",
         payload={"site": "nord", "shift": "late",
                  "audio_ref": "nord/late",
                  "consent_basis": "works-agreement-2026-03"})

A commented schedule variant is in the YAML.

consent_basis is recorded as a label exactly as the caller supplies it. Preloop does not verify consent. When it is missing, the agent deposits nothing and asks with ask_user; the question appears in Attention until someone answers.

Result

The agent writes /workspace/result.json with "status": "success" | "error", the transcript and summary artifact ids and audio_stored.