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Configure an End-to-End Pipeline for EchoKit

In addition to the classic ASR-LLM-TTS pipeline, EchoKit supports real-time models that can reduce latency. However, this approach has several limitations:

  • High API costs – OpenAI's real-time API can cost up to $25 per 100 tokens
  • No voice customization – You cannot modify the generated voice
  • Limited knowledge integration – External knowledge bases cannot be added to the model
  • No MCP support – Model Control Protocol is not supported in most cases

Prerequisites​

Before setting up your end-to-end pipeline, ensure you have:

  • EchoKit server source code – Follow the guide if you haven't already
  • Gemini API key – Obtain from Google AI Studio
  • TTS service running (optional) – If using custom voice synthesis

Gemini API Setup​

Google's Gemini is one of the most advanced models supporting voice-to-voice interactions, and EchoKit fully supports it. For detailed implementation, see the Gemini example.

Getting Your Gemini API Key​

  1. Visit Google AI Studio
  2. Sign in with your Google account
  3. Navigate to "Get API Key" in the left sidebar
  4. Create a new API key for your project
  5. Copy the key – you'll need it for the configuration

Basic Configuration​

Here's the complete configuration file for Gemini:

addr = "0.0.0.0:9090"
hello_wav = "hello.wav"

[gemini]
api_key = "your_api_key_here"

[[gemini.sys_prompts]]
role = "system"
content = """
You are a helpful assistant. Please answer user questions as concisely as possible while being accurate and truthful. Use short sentences. Try to be humorous and light-hearted.
"""

Starting the Server​

After editing the configuration file, restart the EchoKit server to apply the changes.

Since you're using a different config.toml file in a custom path, your restart command should look like this:

./target/release/echokit_server ./examples/gemini/chat/config.toml

Gemini + TTS (Custom Voice)​

While real-time models typically don't allow voice customization, EchoKit enables you to customize the voice even when using Gemini!

Configuration with Custom TTS​

Simply add TTS-related parameters to your config.toml file:

addr = "0.0.0.0:9090"
hello_wav = "hello.wav"

[gemini]
api_key = "your_api_key_here"

[tts]
platform = "StreamGSV"
url = "http://localhost:9094/v1/audio/stream_speech"
speaker = "cooper"

[[gemini.sys_prompts]]
role = "system"
content = """
You are a helpful assistant. Please answer user questions as concisely as possible while being accurate and truthful. Use short sentences. Try to be humorous and light-hearted.
"""

With these TTS settings configured, you can now use your preferred custom voice.