Setup patter

Set up Patter

Install the Patter SDK and provision the credentials required to place or receive real phone calls. Patter is open-source — there is no Patter API key. You bring your own provider (OpenAI / ElevenLabs / Deepgram / …) and your own carrier (Twilio or Telnyx) keys, and Patter wires them together.

Workflow

Step 1 — Pick a runtime

Ask the user which SDK they want. Both have full feature parity.

• Python (3.11+): pip install "getpatter>=0.7.0"
• TypeScript (Node 20+): npm install "getpatter@>=0.7.0"

If they're unsure, default to whichever language the rest of their project is in. Do not install both.

Step 2 — Pick an engine (decides which provider keys are needed)

Engine	What it does	Required keys
OpenAIRealtime2 (recommended, GA since 0.6.3)	Speech-to-speech via OpenAI Realtime API — lowest latency	OPENAI_API_KEY
OpenAIRealtime (legacy)	Older gpt-realtime-mini model. Same key.	OPENAI_API_KEY
ElevenLabsConvAI	ElevenLabs ConversationAI — turn-taking model	ELEVENLABS_API_KEY
Pipeline (no engine arg)	STT → LLM → TTS — mix providers freely	At least one each of STT/LLM/TTS key

If the user wants the simplest setup, default to OpenAIRealtime2 — single key, lowest latency, GA quality. Mention Pipeline only if they ask for custom STT/LLM/TTS or for cost tuning.

Step 3 — Pick a carrier

Carrier	Audio format	Required env
Twilio	mulaw 8 kHz	TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID, TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN
Telnyx	PCM 16 kHz	TELNYX_API_KEY

Twilio is the default suggestion — broader US/EU coverage, mature TwiML ecosystem. Telnyx is preferable in regions where Twilio coverage is weak and for users who want lower carrier cost.

Buying a phone number is the user's job, not the AI agent's — link the console:

• Twilio: https://console.twilio.com/us1/develop/phone-numbers/manage/incoming
• Telnyx: https://portal.telnyx.com/#/app/numbers/my-numbers

Step 4 — Get the keys (concierge the user through each console)

Patter is open-source — there is no Patter API key to issue. Every credential is the user's own, obtained from the provider/carrier console. The agent's job is to walk the user to each dashboard, one key at a time, and validate the result before moving on.

Use the table below for the keys the user actually needs (based on the engine and carrier picked in Steps 2 & 3). Skip rows that don't apply.

Key	Dashboard	What to tell the user
OPENAI_API_KEY	https://platform.openai.com/api-keys	Click + Create new secret key → name it (e.g. "patter-dev") → choose All permissions → copy the sk-... string — it's shown only once.
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID + TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN	https://console.twilio.com	The Account SID and Auth Token are on the home dashboard under Account Info. Click View to reveal the token, then copy both.
TELNYX_API_KEY	https://portal.telnyx.com/#/app/account/api-keys	Click Create API Key → name it → copy the KEY... string. Then go to Connections → SIP/SDK Connections to grab TELNYX_CONNECTION_ID.
ELEVENLABS_API_KEY	https://elevenlabs.io/app/settings/api-keys	Click Create API Key → name it → choose scopes (text_to_speech minimum) → copy the sk_... string.
DEEPGRAM_API_KEY	https://console.deepgram.com/project/_/keys	Click Create a New API Key → role Member → copy.
CEREBRAS_API_KEY	https://cloud.cerebras.ai/platform/api-keys	Click Generate API Key → copy.
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	https://console.anthropic.com/settings/keys	Click Create Key → copy.
GOOGLE_API_KEY	https://aistudio.google.com/apikey	Click Create API key → copy.
GROQ_API_KEY	https://console.groq.com/keys	Click Create API Key → copy.

For each key, follow this concierge loop:

1. Tell the user where to go — paste the URL + the exact UI step from the table above. Wait for their reply.

2. Receive the key — they paste it in the chat. Treat it as sensitive: do NOT echo it back, do NOT commit it, do NOT log it.

3. Validate before continuing — a single cheap request that catches typos without burning the rate limit. Examples:

   # OpenAI — expect HTTP 200
   curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://api.openai.com/v1/models \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY"
   
   # Twilio — expect HTTP 200; account-info ping is free
   curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" \
     "https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/$TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID.json" \
     -u "$TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID:$TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN"
   
   # ElevenLabs — expect HTTP 200
   curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/user \
     -H "xi-api-key: $ELEVENLABS_API_KEY"
   

   If the status is 401 or 403, the key is wrong — tell the user, ask them to re-paste, do not proceed. If it's 429, the key is valid but rate-limited — accept it and continue.

4. Only move to the next key once the current one validated. This prevents silent failures later in Step 6 when phone.serve() raises KeyError and nobody knows which credential is broken.

Step 5 — Write the keys to .env

Once every key is validated, write them to .env in the project root. The agent should do this after Step 4, not before — pasting unvalidated keys is the #1 source of "it doesn't work" support tickets.

# Engine
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

# Carrier (pick one — Twilio shown)
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=AC...
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN=...

# Phone number you bought from the carrier console
PATTER_PHONE_NUMBER=+15550001234

Verify .env is in .gitignore. If not, add it:

.env

Never commit credentials. Patter will pick these up automatically — every carrier and provider reads its key from env by default.

Step 6 — Smoke-test the install

Run the canonical 4-line example and verify it boots without ImportError or KeyError. The agent does not have to place a real call — serve(... tunnel=True) exiting cleanly with a tunnel URL is enough.

Python (test_setup.py):

import asyncio
from getpatter import Patter, Twilio, OpenAIRealtime2

async def main():
    phone = Patter(carrier=Twilio(), phone_number="+15550001234")
    agent = phone.agent(
        engine=OpenAIRealtime2(),
        system_prompt="You are a friendly receptionist.",
        first_message="Hello!",
    )
    await phone.serve(agent, tunnel=True)  # Ctrl+C to stop once tunnel URL prints

asyncio.run(main())

TypeScript (test-setup.ts):

import { Patter, Twilio, OpenAIRealtime2 } from "getpatter";

const phone = new Patter({ carrier: new Twilio(), phoneNumber: "+15550001234" });
const agent = phone.agent({
  engine: new OpenAIRealtime2(),
  systemPrompt: "You are a friendly receptionist.",
  firstMessage: "Hello!",
});
await phone.serve({ agent, tunnel: true });

Run with python test_setup.py or tsx test-setup.ts. Expected output: a log line like tunnel ready: https://<random>.trycloudflare.com within ~5 seconds.

Step 7 — Confirm and hand off

If smoke-test passes, tell the user:

Patter 0.7.0 is set up. You can now use the build-voice-agent skill to design the agent, configure-telephony to wire the carrier webhook to the tunnel URL, or add-tools-and-handoffs to give the agent tools.

Gotchas

• Patter(api_key=...) raises NotImplementedError as of 0.7.0 — Patter Cloud was removed in 0.5.3 and will return as a future release. Always instantiate with carrier= + phone_number=, never with api_key=.
• pip install patter (no get prefix) installs an unrelated package. Always install getpatter.
• Twilio kwargs since 0.6.3 normalize automatically — status_callback, machine_detection, timeout, async_amd work as snake_case (Python) and camelCase (TS); no need to PascalCase them.
• OpenAIRealtime vs OpenAIRealtime2 — both work in 0.7.0. Default to OpenAIRealtime2 for new projects. OpenAIRealtime (model gpt-realtime-mini) is kept for back-compat.
• Cloudflare tunnel=True is dev-only. Production should use a static webhook URL (ngrok paid, or your own subdomain). The tunnel race on first call was fixed in 0.5.5 but a static URL is still more reliable for outbound campaigns.

Common errors

Symptom	Fix
KeyError: OPENAI_API_KEY	The env var isn't loaded. Source .env (source .env in bash, or use python-dotenv / dotenv package).
twilio.base.exceptions.TwilioRestException: HTTP 401	Wrong TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN. Re-copy from console.
RuntimeError: NotImplementedError: Patter Cloud …	You passed api_key= to Patter(). Switch to carrier= + phone_number=.
TypeScript Cannot find module 'getpatter'	Wrong Node version (need 20+) or missed npm install. Check node --version.
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'getpatter'	Wrong Python venv active, or installed in the wrong interpreter. `pip list

Related skills

• build-voice-agent — once setup is done, build the actual agent.
• configure-telephony — full Twilio / Telnyx config beyond keys.

References

• Patter Python quickstart: https://docs.getpatter.com/python-sdk/quickstart
• Patter TypeScript quickstart: https://docs.getpatter.com/typescript-sdk/quickstart
• Twilio console: https://console.twilio.com
• Telnyx portal: https://portal.telnyx.com