GPT WORLD / INDEPENDENT CODEX FIELD MANUAL Source review · 2026-07-31

Retrospective edition / AUDIO

Design synthetic speech as a disclosed interface

Choose voice, format, chunking, playback, and interruption behavior as product decisions, then disclose that the voice is AI-generated.

01 / DECIDE

Architecture decision

Use it for accessibility, narration, previews, and conversational feedback where users can pause or switch to text.

Choose voice, format, chunking, playback, and interruption behavior as product decisions, then disclose that the voice is AI-generated. Map input, output, state, and side effects as one observable path before deciding which layer owns design synthetic speech as a disclosed interface.

02 / BUILD

Three-step implementation

  1. 01

    Frame the contract

    Write down the caller, data classification, success condition, timeout, cancellation, and ownership. Use it for accessibility, narration, previews, and conversational feedback where users can pause or switch to text.

  2. 02

    Build one narrow path

    Implement one end-to-end path with request correlation, typed state, and reversible failure handling. Choose voice, format, chunking, playback, and interruption behavior as product decisions, then disclose that the voice is AI-generated.

  3. 03

    Prove the outcome

    Turn acceptance into a repeatable fixture, contract test, or browser test. Playback tests cover first-byte latency, interruption, punctuation, multilingual text, unsupported input, and fallback rendering.

03 / BOUND

Production boundary

Do not imitate a person without authority; preserve disclosure and provide a non-audio path for critical information.

04 / PROVE

Acceptance evidence

Playback tests cover first-byte latency, interruption, punctuation, multilingual text, unsupported input, and fallback rendering.

SOURCE / HTTP

Reproducible source probe

curl -fsSI 'https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/guides/text-to-speech' | sed -n '1,5p'

PRIMARY / OFFICIAL

Official OpenAI sources

Sources checked · 2026-08-10

  1. 01Text to speech