Interruption Settings

Interruption settings control whether and how callers can interrupt your AI assistant while it is speaking. By default, interruptions are enabled — callers can barge in at any point. You can disable interruptions entirely, protect only the greeting from being cut off, or tune the endpointing thresholds that determine when the assistant treats caller speech as a complete turn. In this guide, you will learn:

How interruption handling differs between turn-taking and non turn-taking transcription models.
How to configure interruption settings via the API.
How to protect greetings and tune endpointing thresholds.

How it works

Interruption behavior depends on which transcription model your assistant uses.

Turn-taking models

Turn-taking models like deepgram/flux have built-in end-of-turn detection. When you use one of these models, the assistant determines when the caller has finished speaking using the transcription-level settings eot_threshold, eot_timeout_ms, and eager_eot_threshold — configured under transcription.settings. See the Transcription Settings guide for details. You can still use interruption_settings.enable and interruption_settings.disable_greeting_interruption with turn-taking models, but the start_speaking_plan and transcription_endpointing_plan thresholds are not relevant because the model handles turn detection natively.

Non turn-taking models

For models without built-in turn detection (such as deepgram/nova-3, deepgram/nova-2, azure/fast, or nvidia/parakeet-v3), the assistant relies on the interruption_settings.start_speaking_plan to decide when to start speaking after the caller stops. This plan uses silence-based endpointing thresholds to detect end of turn.

Configuration

API schema

Set the interruption_settings object when creating or updating an assistant:

curl -X POST https://api.telnyx.com/v2/ai/assistants \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TELNYX_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "My Assistant",
    "model": "anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5",
    "instructions": "You are a helpful voice assistant.",
    "transcription": {
      "model": "deepgram/nova-3"
    },
    "interruption_settings": {
      "enable": true,
      "disable_greeting_interruption": true,
      "start_speaking_plan": {
        "wait_seconds": 0.4,
        "transcription_endpointing_plan": {
          "on_punctuation_seconds": 0.1,
          "on_no_punctuation_seconds": 1.5,
          "on_number_seconds": 0.5
        }
      }
    }
  }'

Key fields

Field	Type	Default	Description
`enable`	boolean	`true`	Whether callers can interrupt the assistant while it is speaking.
`disable_greeting_interruption`	boolean	—	When `true`, prevents callers from interrupting the assistant’s greeting.
`start_speaking_plan.wait_seconds`	float	`0.4`	Minimum seconds to wait after the caller stops speaking before the assistant responds.
`start_speaking_plan.transcription_endpointing_plan.on_punctuation_seconds`	float	`0.1`	Seconds to wait after the transcript ends with punctuation before treating the turn as complete.
`start_speaking_plan.transcription_endpointing_plan.on_no_punctuation_seconds`	float	`1.5`	Seconds to wait after the transcript ends without punctuation before treating the turn as complete.
`start_speaking_plan.transcription_endpointing_plan.on_number_seconds`	float	`0.5`	Seconds to wait after the transcript ends with a number before treating the turn as complete.

Mission Control Portal

You can also configure interruption settings through the Portal:

Navigate to AI > Assistants.
Select your assistant and click Edit.
Open the Voice tab.
Scroll to the Interruption Settings section.
Toggle interruptions on or off, enable greeting protection, and adjust the start speaking plan thresholds.

Example configurations

Default — allow interruptions

Allow callers to interrupt at any time, including during the greeting. This is the default behavior when interruption_settings is omitted.

{
  "interruption_settings": {
    "enable": true
  }
}

Protected greeting

Allow interruptions during normal conversation but prevent callers from cutting off the assistant’s initial greeting. Useful for flows where the greeting contains required disclosures or context.

{
  "interruption_settings": {
    "enable": true,
    "disable_greeting_interruption": true
  }
}

Conservative endpointing for non turn-taking models

Use longer silence thresholds to reduce false interruptions in noisy environments or when callers tend to pause mid-sentence. This configuration waits longer before treating silence as end of turn.

{
  "interruption_settings": {
    "enable": true,
    "start_speaking_plan": {
      "wait_seconds": 0.8,
      "transcription_endpointing_plan": {
        "on_punctuation_seconds": 0.3,
        "on_no_punctuation_seconds": 2.0,
        "on_number_seconds": 1.0
      }
    }
  }
}

Use cases

Call centers with background noise: Increase wait_seconds and endpointing thresholds to prevent ambient noise from triggering false interruptions.
IVR-style interactions: Keep interruptions enabled so callers can barge in to skip prompts they have already heard.
Greeting-heavy flows: Enable disable_greeting_interruption to ensure callers hear required disclosures, legal notices, or welcome messages before interacting.
Dictation or number entry: Increase on_number_seconds to give callers time to finish reading out long numbers like account IDs or phone numbers without the assistant cutting in.

Transcription Settings — Configure STT models and end-of-turn detection for turn-taking models like deepgram/flux.
Create an Assistant API Reference — Full assistant configuration options including interruption_settings.
End-of-Turn Detection — Lower-level end-of-turn parameters for WebSocket STT streaming.

Guides

Missions

AI Insights

Assistants API

Missions API

Conversations API

For AI Agents

Interruption Settings

How it works

Turn-taking models

Non turn-taking models

Configuration

API schema

Key fields

Mission Control Portal

Example configurations

Default — allow interruptions

Protected greeting

Conservative endpointing for non turn-taking models

Use cases

​How it works

​Turn-taking models

​Non turn-taking models

​Configuration

​API schema

​Key fields

​Mission Control Portal

​Example configurations

​Default — allow interruptions

​Protected greeting

​Conservative endpointing for non turn-taking models

​Use cases

​Related resources

How it works

Turn-taking models

Non turn-taking models

Configuration

API schema

Key fields

Mission Control Portal

Example configurations

Default — allow interruptions

Protected greeting

Conservative endpointing for non turn-taking models

Use cases

Related resources