Test Audio Transcription with ElevenLabs

provider-elevenlabs/stt (ElevenLabs Speech-to-Text)

This example demonstrates how to use ElevenLabs STT provider for audio transcription testing.

Quick Start

npx promptfoo@latest init --example provider-elevenlabs/stt
cd provider-elevenlabs/stt
export ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
npx promptfoo@latest eval

Features

• Audio Transcription: Convert speech to text with high accuracy
• Speaker Diarization: Identify and separate multiple speakers in audio
• Word Error Rate (WER): Measure transcription accuracy against reference text
• Multi-format Support: MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A, OGG, OPUS, WebM

Setup

1. Set your API key:

   export ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
   

2. Prepare audio files:
   Create an audio/ directory with your test audio files:

   mkdir -p audio
   # Place your audio files in the audio/ directory
   

3. Run the evaluation:

   promptfoo eval
   

Configuration

Basic Transcription

providers:
  - id: elevenlabs:stt:basic
    config:
      modelId: eleven_speech_to_text_v1
      language: en # ISO 639-1 language code

Speaker Diarization

Identify and label different speakers in your audio:

providers:
  - id: elevenlabs:stt:diarization
    config:
      modelId: eleven_speech_to_text_v1
      diarization: true
      maxSpeakers: 3 # Optional: hint for expected number of speakers

The response will include speaker segments:

{
  "text": "Full transcription...",
  "diarization": [
    {
      "speaker_id": "speaker_0",
      "text": "Hello, how are you?",
      "start_time_ms": 0,
      "end_time_ms": 2500,
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "speaker_id": "speaker_1",
      "text": "I'm doing well, thanks!",
      "start_time_ms": 2500,
      "end_time_ms": 5000,
      "confidence": 0.92
    }
  ]
}

Accuracy Testing with WER

Word Error Rate (WER) measures transcription accuracy. Lower is better (0 = perfect).

providers:
  - id: elevenlabs:stt:accuracy
    config:
      modelId: eleven_speech_to_text_v1
      calculateWER: true
      referenceText: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

WER Formula: (Substitutions + Deletions + Insertions) / Total Words

The response includes detailed WER metrics:

{
  "wer": 0.05, // 5% error rate
  "substitutions": 1,
  "deletions": 0,
  "insertions": 0,
  "correct": 19,
  "totalWords": 20,
  "details": {
    "reference": "the quick brown fox jumps",
    "hypothesis": "the quick green fox jumps",
    "alignment": "REF: the quick brown fox jumps\nHYP: the quick green fox jumps\nOPS:           SSSSS"
  }
}

WER Interpretation:

• 0.00 - 0.05: Excellent (95%+ accurate)
• 0.05 - 0.10: Good (90-95% accurate)
• 0.10 - 0.20: Fair (80-90% accurate)
• 0.20+: Poor (< 80% accurate)

Supported Audio Formats

Audio Input Methods

Method 1: Config-level

providers:
  - id: elevenlabs:stt
    config:
      audioFile: path/to/audio.mp3

Method 2: Prompt-level

prompts:
  - audio/sample1.mp3
  - audio/sample2.wav

Method 3: Vars-level

tests:
  - vars:
      audioFile: audio/sample.mp3

Testing Assertions

Cost Threshold

tests:
  - assert:
      - type: cost
        threshold: 0.05 # Max $0.05 per transcription

Latency Threshold

tests:
  - assert:
      - type: latency
        threshold: 10000 # Max 10 seconds

Transcription Quality

tests:
  - assert:
      - type: contains
        value: expected phrase

      - type: not-contains
        value: incorrect phrase

WER Threshold

tests:
  - assert:
      - type: javascript
        value: |
          const wer = context.vars.metadata?.wer?.wer || 1;
          wer < 0.1  // Less than 10% error

Speaker Count

tests:
  - assert:
      - type: javascript
        value: |
          const diarization = context.vars.metadata?.transcription?.diarization || [];
          const uniqueSpeakers = new Set(diarization.map(s => s.speaker_id));
          uniqueSpeakers.size === 2  // Expect 2 speakers

Language Support

ElevenLabs STT supports 30+ languages. Specify using ISO 639-1 codes:

config:
  language: en # English
  # language: es  # Spanish
  # language: fr  # French
  # language: de  # German
  # language: it  # Italian
  # language: pt  # Portuguese
  # language: ja  # Japanese
  # language: ko  # Korean
  # language: zh  # Chinese

Auto-detection: Omit language to let the API detect the language automatically.

Cost Information

STT pricing is based on audio duration:

• Free tier: 1 hour/month
• Paid tiers: $0.10 per minute ($0.00167 per second)

The provider automatically tracks and reports costs in the evaluation results.

Advanced Usage

Batch Transcription

prompts:
  - audio/batch1.mp3
  - audio/batch2.mp3
  - audio/batch3.mp3

providers:
  - id: elevenlabs:stt
    config:
      modelId: eleven_speech_to_text_v1

# Test all files with consistent assertions
tests:
  - assert:
      - type: cost
        threshold: 0.10
      - type: latency
        threshold: 15000

Multi-language Testing

providers:
  - id: elevenlabs:stt:english
    config:
      language: en

  - id: elevenlabs:stt:spanish
    config:
      language: es

  - id: elevenlabs:stt:autodetect
    config:
      # No language specified = auto-detect

prompts:
  - audio/english_sample.mp3
  - audio/spanish_sample.mp3

Accuracy Comparison

Compare transcription accuracy across different audio qualities:

prompts:
  - audio/high_quality_48khz.wav
  - audio/medium_quality_16khz.mp3
  - audio/low_quality_8khz.mp3

providers:
  - id: elevenlabs:stt
    config:
      calculateWER: true
      referenceText: This is the expected transcription text

tests:
  - description: High quality should have WER < 5%
    vars:
      audioFile: audio/high_quality_48khz.wav
    assert:
      - type: javascript
        value: (context.vars.metadata?.wer?.wer || 1) < 0.05

  - description: Medium quality should have WER < 10%
    vars:
      audioFile: audio/medium_quality_16khz.mp3
    assert:
      - type: javascript
        value: (context.vars.metadata?.wer?.wer || 1) < 0.10

Troubleshooting

API Key Issues

# Verify your API key is set
echo $ELEVENLABS_API_KEY

# Or set it inline
ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=your_key promptfoo eval

Audio File Not Found

Error: Failed to read audio file: ENOENT: no such file or directory

Solution: Use absolute paths or paths relative to the config file:

prompts:
  - /absolute/path/to/audio.mp3
  - ./relative/path/to/audio.mp3

Unsupported Format

Error: Unsupported audio format

Solution: Convert your audio to a supported format (MP3, WAV, etc.) using tools like ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i input.video -vn -acodec mp3 output.mp3

High WER on Clear Audio

If you're getting unexpectedly high WER:

1. Check reference text - ensure it exactly matches the audio (including punctuation)
2. Specify language - auto-detection may choose the wrong language
3. Audio quality - ensure audio is clear with minimal background noise
4. Normalization - WER calculation normalizes text (lowercase, removes punctuation)

API Reference

Config Options

Related Examples

• ElevenLabs TTS - Text-to-Speech synthesis
• ElevenLabs Isolation - Audio cleanup quality comparison

Resources

• ElevenLabs STT Documentation
• Supported Languages
• Word Error Rate (WER)