pipecat-roark 0.1.2

Roark analytics observer for Pipecat — capture call lifecycle, transcripts, tool calls, and recordings from any Pipecat pipeline.

pipecat-roark

A Roark analytics observer for Pipecat. Drop one observer into your pipeline — Roark captures call lifecycle, transcripts, tool calls, and a stereo audio recording. No other code changes required.

• Tested with pipecat-ai 0.0.108 (compatible with >= 0.0.40, < 1)
• Python 3.10+
• Runtime-agnostic — same code runs self-hosted and on Pipecat Cloud

Maintained by Roark. File issues at https://github.com/roarkhq/pipecat-roark/issues.

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Contents

• Quick start
• How it works
• Running modes
• Examples
• Advanced
  • Bring your own AudioBufferProcessor
  • Handling WebRTC disconnects
  • Correlating with OpenTelemetry tracing
• Troubleshooting
• Configuration reference
• Development
• License

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Quick start

1. Install

pip install pipecat-roark

2. Configure

Set one env var:

ROARK_API_KEY=rk_live_...

The Roark API key is all you configure — the observer knows its own service endpoints. ROARK_API_KEY can also be passed as api_key= to RoarkObserver.

3. Wire the observer

Drop RoarkObserver into your pipeline's observers=[...] list. Splice the auto-created roark.audio_processor after transport.output() so it sees the bot's audio post-TTS:

from pipecat.pipeline.pipeline import Pipeline
from pipecat.pipeline.task import PipelineParams, PipelineTask
from pipecat_roark import RoarkObserver

roark = RoarkObserver(
    api_key="rk_live_...",
    agent_id="support-bot-v3",
    agent_name="Support Bot v3",
    agent_prompt=SYSTEM_PROMPT,
)

pipeline = Pipeline([
    transport.input(), stt, context_aggregator.user(), llm, tts,
    transport.output(),
    roark.audio_processor,          # after transport.output() — L=user, R=bot
    context_aggregator.assistant(),
])

task = PipelineTask(pipeline, params=PipelineParams(observers=[roark]))

That's it — transcripts, tool calls, and the stereo recording flow to Roark automatically.

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How it works

The observer subscribes to Pipecat frames and ships a compact event timeline to Roark:

Phase	What's captured
Pipeline start	call-started POST + recording begins. Agent is lazy-registered on Roark the first time it sees this agent_id.
User turns	Final TranscriptionFrames (interim transcriptions ignored).
Assistant turns	TTSTextFrame chunks aggregated between BotStoppedSpeakingFrame / InterruptionFrame boundaries.
Tool calls	FunctionCallInProgressFrame + FunctionCallResultFrame, paired by toolCallId.
Audio	Stereo PCM chunks emitted by AudioBufferProcessor, streamed via presigned upload URLs (POST /v1/integrations/pipecat/chunk-upload-url).
Pipeline end	EndFrame / CancelFrame / StopFrame (or aflush()) flushes in-flight turns, drains uploads, and POSTs call-ended. Roark finalizes the recording on its side.

Transcripts and tool calls are forwarded in Pipecat's native shape — Roark maps them to its internal schema on its side.

Audio capture defaults

The observer always creates a sane-default AudioBufferProcessor (stereo, ~256 KB chunks) exposed as roark.audio_processor. The sample rate is adopted from the pipeline's StartFrame, so it tracks whatever the transport/provider negotiated — 8 kHz on Twilio/Telnyx, 16/24/48 kHz on Daily/LiveKit, etc. The rate is forwarded to Roark as the recording sample rate.

Failure mode

Failures are logged and swallowed — the observer never raises into the pipeline. Your call keeps running even if Roark is unreachable.

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Running modes

RoarkObserver is runtime-agnostic — the same observer wiring works whether your Pipecat agent runs as a self-hosted process or is deployed to Pipecat Cloud. Write one bot(runner_args) entry point with Pipecat's create_transport helper, and the same file runs in both modes — see examples/bot.py.

	Self-hosted	Pipecat Cloud
Entry point	python bot.py → pipecat.runner.run.main() dispatches to bot()	Platform invokes bot(runner_args) per session
Room/token	You provision (Daily REST, pipecat.runner.daily.configure, …)	Injected via DailyRunnerArguments
Env vars	.env / your secrets manager	pcc secrets set <name> KEY=value …
Teardown	EndFrame is reliable	Sessions can vanish — wire aflush() on disconnect
Observer wiring	← identical →	← identical →

Self-hosted

cp .env.example .env
# fill in ROARK_API_KEY
uv sync --all-extras
uv run python examples/bot.py --transport daily   # or: --transport webrtc

Pipecat Cloud

Set the same vars as deployment secrets, then deploy:

pcc secrets set roark-secrets \
    ROARK_API_KEY=rk_live_...

pcc deploy
pcc agent start <agent-name>

Reference the secrets from your pcc-deploy.toml so the container sees them as os.environ["ROARK_API_KEY"] (etc.) at runtime.

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Examples

Two example files ship with the package:

• examples/basic_observer.py — minimal transport-agnostic wiring sketch. Shows where RoarkObserver and roark.audio_processor slot into a Pipeline / PipelineTask. STT / LLM / TTS stages are omitted — copy them into your own pipeline.
• examples/bot.py — runnable foundational voice assistant (Deepgram STT → OpenAI LLM → Cartesia TTS) with RoarkObserver wired in. Same file runs self-hosted (--transport webrtc / --transport daily) and deploys to Pipecat Cloud unchanged.

cp .env.example .env
# fill in:
#   ROARK_API_KEY
#   DEEPGRAM_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, CARTESIA_API_KEY

uv sync --all-extras
uv pip install "pipecat-ai[silero,deepgram,openai,cartesia,webrtc,daily]"

# Local browser via Pipecat's built-in WebRTC (no third-party transport account):
uv run python examples/bot.py --transport webrtc
# Or Daily (see Pipecat runner docs for transport-specific setup):
uv run python examples/bot.py --transport daily

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Advanced

Bring your own AudioBufferProcessor

If you need to tune sample rate, channel count, or buffer size, instantiate AudioBufferProcessor yourself and pass it via audio_buffer_processor=:

from pipecat.processors.audio.audio_buffer_processor import AudioBufferProcessor

audio_buffer = AudioBufferProcessor(sample_rate=16000, num_channels=1, buffer_size=128 * 1024)

pipeline = Pipeline([..., transport.output(), audio_buffer, ...])

RoarkObserver(
    api_key="rk_live_...",
    agent_id="support-bot-v3",
    audio_buffer_processor=audio_buffer,
)

Handling WebRTC disconnects

Pipecat's WebRTC transports (notably SmallWebRTC) sometimes tear down without pushing EndFrame through observers. Call aflush() from the disconnect handler to guarantee the call is finalized on Roark:

@transport.event_handler("on_client_disconnected")
async def _on_disconnect(_, __):
    await roark_observer.aflush(reason="client-disconnected")

aflush() is idempotent — the regular EndFrame path will no-op on the next call.

Correlating with OpenTelemetry tracing

If you also enable Pipecat's OpenTelemetry tracing (PipelineTask(enable_tracing=True)), generate one call ID up front and pass it to both sides — the observer's pipecat_call_id and PipelineTask's conversation_id — so each Roark call can be looked up by the same value in your tracing backend:

import uuid
from pipecat.pipeline.task import PipelineParams, PipelineTask
from pipecat_roark import RoarkObserver

call_id = str(uuid.uuid4())   # or your own external ID (Twilio CallSid, DB row id, …)

roark = RoarkObserver(
    api_key="rk_live_...",
    agent_id="support-bot-v3",
    pipecat_call_id=call_id,   # appears on the Roark record as `pipecatCallId`
)

task = PipelineTask(
    pipeline,
    params=PipelineParams(observers=[roark]),
    enable_tracing=True,
    conversation_id=call_id,   # set as the `conversation.id` span attribute by Pipecat
)

Pipecat sets conversation.id as a span attribute on a root "conversation" span (and propagates it to every child span). The OTel traceId itself is auto-generated and unrelated to your call ID; correlation happens by attribute value. To find the trace for a Roark call, query your backend by conversation.id = <pipecatCallId> (e.g., Honeycomb: where conversation.id = "...", Jaeger: tag filter, Datadog: @conversation.id:...).

If you omit pipecat_call_id, the observer generates one internally — fine for standalone use, but you won't be able to link a Roark call to its trace. With OTel enabled, always pass the same value to both.

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Troubleshooting

Do I need enable_tracing=True on PipelineTask?

No. RoarkObserver captures raw frames — it does not consume OpenTelemetry spans. The tracing flag is unrelated. If you do enable it and want Roark calls linked to their traces, see Correlating with OpenTelemetry tracing.

Calls aren't finalizing on Roark

Some transports (notably SmallWebRTC) tear down without pushing EndFrame through observers. Wire aflush() into your disconnect handler — see Handling WebRTC disconnects.

Recording captures user audio only / bot audio only

The AudioBufferProcessor must sit after transport.output() so it sees the bot's audio post-TTS. If it's placed earlier in the pipeline, the bot channel will be silent.

Transcripts arrive empty

The observer warns call-ended with empty transcript ... no TranscriptionFrame or TTSTextFrame was observed during the call when nothing was captured. Usually this means the STT service isn't emitting finalized TranscriptionFrames, or the pipeline ended before any speech was processed.

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Configuration reference

Parameter	Type	Default	Notes
api_key	str	—	Required. Roark API key.
agent_id	str	—	Required. Customer-stable agent identifier.
agent_name	str | None	None	Display name.
agent_prompt	str | None	None	System prompt. Persisted as the agent's prompt revision.
audio_buffer_processor	AudioBufferProcessor | None	None	Power-user override — pass your own AudioBufferProcessor to control sample rate / channels / buffer size. If omitted, the observer creates a default (stereo, ~256 KB chunks; sample rate adopted from the pipeline's StartFrame) accessible via observer.audio_processor.
pipecat_call_id	str | None	random UUID	Stable call identifier. Pass the same value to PipelineTask(conversation_id=...) when OTel tracing is enabled — see Correlating with OpenTelemetry tracing.

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Development

uv sync --all-extras
uv run pytest
uv run ruff check .

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.