Official agent skill

Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet

by microsoft in microsoft/skills

Azure AI Voice Live SDK for .NET. An agent skill from microsoft/skills.

OfficialMITAuto-check passedBackend & APIs

Install Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet

skills CLI
$ npx skills add microsoft/skills --skill azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install microsoft/skills azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/.github/plugins/azure-sdk-dotnet/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet .claude/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet
GitHub stars
3.1k
Used in
5 other repos
Token cost
~2.3k tokens
SKILL.md length
266 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
150
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Azure AI Voice Live SDK for .NET. An agent skill from microsoft/skills.

  • Works in 4 steps: Start Session and Configure → Process Events → Send User Message → …
  • Voice assistants
  • SKILL.md covers Installation, Environment Variables, Authentication and Client Hierarchy, plus 9 more sections
  • Calls dotnet; reaches learn.microsoft.com; needs AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS and AZURE_VOICELIVE_API_KEY

What it does

Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet is an agent skill from microsoft/skills, published by the product's own GitHub organization. Azure AI Voice Live SDK for .NET. Build real-time voice AI applications with bidirectional WebSocket communication. Use for voice assistants, conversational AI, real-time speech-to-speech, and voice-enabled chatbots. Triggers: "voice live", "real-time voice", "VoiceLiveClient", "VoiceLiveSession", "voice assistant .NET", "bidirectional audio", "speech-to-speech".

Its SKILL.md is about 2.3k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Backend & APIs, covering Chatbots and conversational support, Realtime and WebSockets and Speech recognition and synthesis. It works with .NET, Microsoft Azure, Azure AI Speech and OpenAI. The repository describes itself as: Skills, MCP servers, Custom Agents, Agents.md for SDKs to ground Coding Agents. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Voice assistants
  • Conversational AI
  • Real-time speech-to-speech
  • Voice-enabled chatbots

Example prompts

  • “voice live”
  • “real-time voice”
  • “VoiceLiveClient”
  • “/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet”

Requirements

  • A credential in AZURE_VOICELIVE_API_KEY

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Start Session and Configure
  2. Process Events
  3. Send User Message
  4. Function Calling

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit d5741a1. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • dotnet

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:

    • learn.microsoft.com

    Also links to:

    • nuget.org
    • github.com

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names these keys or tokens, usually read from environment variables:

    • AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS
    • AZURE_VOICELIVE_API_KEY

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet loads about 2.3k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 98 tokens; SKILL.md has 266 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~98
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~2.3k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from microsoft/skills at commit d5741a1, republished under its MIT licence (© microsoft). 266 words, ~2,278 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet
description
Azure AI Voice Live SDK for .NET. Build real-time voice AI applications with bidirectional WebSocket communication. Use for voice assistants, conversational AI, real-time speech-to-speech, and voice-enabled chatbots. Triggers: "voice live", "real-time voice", "VoiceLiveClient", "VoiceLiveSession", "voice assistant .NET", "bidirectional audio", "speech-to-speech".
license
MIT
metadata.author
Microsoft
metadata.version
1.0.0
metadata.package
Azure.AI.VoiceLive

Azure.AI.VoiceLive (.NET)

Real-time voice AI SDK for building bidirectional voice assistants with Azure AI.

Installation

bash
dotnet add package Azure.AI.VoiceLive
dotnet add package Azure.Identity
dotnet add package NAudio                    # For audio capture/playback

Current Versions: Stable v1.0.0, Preview v1.1.0-beta.1

Environment Variables

bash
AZURE_VOICELIVE_ENDPOINT=https://<resource>.services.ai.azure.com/  # Required: Voice Live endpoint
AZURE_VOICELIVE_MODEL=gpt-4o-realtime-preview  # Required: model deployment name
AZURE_VOICELIVE_VOICE=en-US-AvaNeural  # Optional: Voice Live voice name
AZURE_VOICELIVE_API_KEY=<your-api-key>  # Only required for AzureKeyCredential auth
AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS=prod  # Required only if DefaultAzureCredential is used in production

Authentication

Microsoft Entra Token Credential
csharp
using Azure.Identity;
using Azure.AI.VoiceLive;

Uri endpoint = new Uri("https://your-resource.cognitiveservices.azure.com");
// Local dev: DefaultAzureCredential. Production: set AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS=prod or AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS=<specific_credential>
var credential = new DefaultAzureCredential(
    DefaultAzureCredential.DefaultEnvironmentVariableName
);
// Or use a specific credential directly in production:
// See https://learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/api/overview/azure/identity-readme?view=azure-dotnet#credential-classes
// var credential = new ManagedIdentityCredential();
VoiceLiveClient client = new VoiceLiveClient(endpoint, credential);

Required Role: Cognitive Services User (assign in Azure Portal → Access control)

API Key
csharp
Uri endpoint = new Uri("https://your-resource.cognitiveservices.azure.com");
AzureKeyCredential credential = new AzureKeyCredential("your-api-key");
VoiceLiveClient client = new VoiceLiveClient(endpoint, credential);

Client Hierarchy

VoiceLiveClient
└── VoiceLiveSession (WebSocket connection)
    ├── ConfigureSessionAsync()
    ├── GetUpdatesAsync() → SessionUpdate events
    ├── AddItemAsync() → UserMessageItem, FunctionCallOutputItem
    ├── SendAudioAsync()
    └── StartResponseAsync()

Core Workflow

1. Start Session and Configure
csharp
using Azure.Identity;
using Azure.AI.VoiceLive;

var endpoint = new Uri(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("AZURE_VOICELIVE_ENDPOINT"));
var client = new VoiceLiveClient(endpoint, new DefaultAzureCredential());

var model = "gpt-4o-mini-realtime-preview";

// Start session
using VoiceLiveSession session = await client.StartSessionAsync(model);

// Configure session
VoiceLiveSessionOptions sessionOptions = new()
{
    Model = model,
    Instructions = "You are a helpful AI assistant. Respond naturally.",
    Voice = new AzureStandardVoice("en-US-AvaNeural"),
    TurnDetection = new AzureSemanticVadTurnDetection()
    {
        Threshold = 0.5f,
        PrefixPadding = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(300),
        SilenceDuration = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(500)
    },
    InputAudioFormat = InputAudioFormat.Pcm16,
    OutputAudioFormat = OutputAudioFormat.Pcm16
};

// Set modalities (both text and audio for voice assistants)
sessionOptions.Modalities.Clear();
sessionOptions.Modalities.Add(InteractionModality.Text);
sessionOptions.Modalities.Add(InteractionModality.Audio);

await session.ConfigureSessionAsync(sessionOptions);
2. Process Events
csharp
await foreach (SessionUpdate serverEvent in session.GetUpdatesAsync())
{
    switch (serverEvent)
    {
        case SessionUpdateResponseAudioDelta audioDelta:
            byte[] audioData = audioDelta.Delta.ToArray();
            // Play audio via NAudio or other audio library
            break;
            
        case SessionUpdateResponseTextDelta textDelta:
            Console.Write(textDelta.Delta);
            break;
            
        case SessionUpdateResponseFunctionCallArgumentsDone functionCall:
            // Handle function call (see Function Calling section)
            break;
            
        case SessionUpdateError error:
            Console.WriteLine($"Error: {error.Error.Message}");
            break;
            
        case SessionUpdateResponseDone:
            Console.WriteLine("\n--- Response complete ---");
            break;
    }
}
3. Send User Message
csharp
await session.AddItemAsync(new UserMessageItem("Hello, can you help me?"));
await session.StartResponseAsync();
4. Function Calling
csharp
// Define function
var weatherFunction = new VoiceLiveFunctionDefinition("get_current_weather")
{
    Description = "Get the current weather for a given location",
    Parameters = BinaryData.FromString("""
        {
            "type": "object",
            "properties": {
                "location": {
                    "type": "string",
                    "description": "The city and state or country"
                }
            },
            "required": ["location"]
        }
        """)
};

// Add to session options
sessionOptions.Tools.Add(weatherFunction);

// Handle function call in event loop
if (serverEvent is SessionUpdateResponseFunctionCallArgumentsDone functionCall)
{
    if (functionCall.Name == "get_current_weather")
    {
        var parameters = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<Dictionary<string, string>>(functionCall.Arguments);
        string location = parameters?["location"] ?? "";
        
        // Call external service
        string weatherInfo = $"The weather in {location} is sunny, 75°F.";
        
        // Send response
        await session.AddItemAsync(new FunctionCallOutputItem(functionCall.CallId, weatherInfo));
        await session.StartResponseAsync();
    }
}

Voice Options

Voice TypeClassExample
Azure StandardAzureStandardVoice"en-US-AvaNeural"
Azure HDAzureStandardVoice"en-US-Ava:DragonHDLatestNeural"
Azure CustomAzureCustomVoiceCustom voice with endpoint ID

Supported Models

ModelDescription
gpt-4o-realtime-previewGPT-4o with real-time audio
gpt-4o-mini-realtime-previewLightweight, fast interactions
phi4-mm-realtimeCost-effective multimodal

Key Types Reference

TypePurpose
VoiceLiveClientMain client for creating sessions
VoiceLiveSessionActive WebSocket session
VoiceLiveSessionOptionsSession configuration
AzureStandardVoiceStandard Azure voice provider
AzureSemanticVadTurnDetectionVoice activity detection
VoiceLiveFunctionDefinitionFunction tool definition
UserMessageItemUser text message
FunctionCallOutputItemFunction call response
SessionUpdateResponseAudioDeltaAudio chunk event
SessionUpdateResponseTextDeltaText chunk event

Best Practices

  1. Always set both modalities — Include Text and Audio for voice assistants
  2. Use AzureSemanticVadTurnDetection — Provides natural conversation flow
  3. Configure appropriate silence duration — 500ms typical to avoid premature cutoffs
  4. Use using statement — Ensures proper session disposal
  5. Handle all event types — Check for errors, audio, text, and function calls
  6. Use DefaultAzureCredential — Never hardcode API keys

Error Handling

csharp
if (serverEvent is SessionUpdateError error)
{
    if (error.Error.Message.Contains("Cancellation failed: no active response"))
    {
        // Benign error, can ignore
    }
    else
    {
        Console.WriteLine($"Error: {error.Error.Message}");
    }
}

Audio Configuration

  • Input Format: InputAudioFormat.Pcm16 (16-bit PCM)
  • Output Format: OutputAudioFormat.Pcm16
  • Sample Rate: 24kHz recommended
  • Channels: Mono
SDKPurposeInstall
Azure.AI.VoiceLiveReal-time voice (this SDK)dotnet add package Azure.AI.VoiceLive
Microsoft.CognitiveServices.SpeechSpeech-to-text, text-to-speechdotnet add package Microsoft.CognitiveServices.Speech
NAudioAudio capture/playbackdotnet add package NAudio

© microsoft, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in .github/plugins/azure-sdk-dotnet/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet of microsoft/skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit d5741a1

Used in 5 other repositories

We found 14 copies of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 5 other GitHub owners. This page covers the copy in microsoft/skills, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

Compare with similar skills

Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet this skillmicrosoft/skills3.1k5 repos~2.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Azure AI Voicelive Pyaiskillstore/marketplace4334 repos~2.3kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Teams App Developermicrosoft/work-iq1k—~1.8kAutomated safety check: NotesCustom licence
Grok Realtime Voice Integrationcursor/plugins11k—~1.7kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Azure AImicrosoft/GitHub-Copilot-for-Azure2551 repos~852Automated safety check: PassMIT
Add Model Pricelangfuse/langfuse36k—~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence

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Questions about Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet

What does Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet do?

Azure AI Voice Live SDK for .NET. An agent skill from microsoft/skills. Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet is an agent skill from microsoft/skills, published by the product's own GitHub organization.NET.

When should I use Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet?

Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet fits situations like: voice assistants; conversational AI; real-time speech-to-speech; voice-enabled chatbots.

How do I install Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add microsoft/skills --skill azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (.github/plugins/azure-sdk-dotnet/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet in microsoft/skills) into .claude/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet in Codex?

Run `npx skills add microsoft/skills --skill azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (.github/plugins/azure-sdk-dotnet/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet in microsoft/skills) into .agents/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add microsoft/skills --skill azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet, .gemini/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet, .github/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet and .opencode/skills/azure-ai-voicelive-dotnet in your project.

What does Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet needs the command-line tools its instructions call (dotnet) and credentials named AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS and AZURE_VOICELIVE_API_KEY. Our summary lists: A credential in AZURE_VOICELIVE_API_KEY.

Does Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet access the network?

SKILL.md names 3 domains. In commands or code: learn.microsoft.com; the agent is likely to contact it when it follows the instructions. As links in the text: nuget.org and github.com. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet use?

Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet is published under the MIT licence (declared in SKILL.md). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet use?

About 2.3k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 9.1k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet: Azure AI Voicelive Py (aiskillstore/marketplace, 433 stars), Teams App Developer (microsoft/work-iq, 1k stars), Grok Realtime Voice Integration (cursor/plugins, 11k stars) and Azure AI (microsoft/GitHub-Copilot-for-Azure, 255 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Azure AI Voicelive Dotnet?

microsoft (a GitHub organization, an official publisher) maintains it in microsoft/skills, which has 3,097 GitHub stars. The repository holds 150 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 9, 2026.

Source: microsoft/skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.