We're migrating from Twilio to Vapi. Currently, our customers can enable "voicemail mode" where the agent speaks once and then the caller leaves a message and hangs up. This is a nice bail out when their agent is not answering correctly, etc. With our Vapi assistant, i tried to set "waitSeconds" to a large number but it errors out > 5: startSpeakingPlan: { waitSeconds: 180 }, ... After testing a bit, these "hacks" work: - Having the llm reply with a space - Delaying the LLM reply I'm just wondering if there's any recommended approach. Thanks

Thanks for sharing all those details! I couldn't find an official recommended approach for implementing a "voicemail mode" in Vapi where the agent speaks once and then the caller leaves a message. I saw that the

startSpeakingPlan.waitSeconds

parameter errors out above 5 seconds, and your workarounds (like replying with a space or delaying the LLM reply) are creative, but there isn't clear guidance in the docs for this use case. I'm escalating this to a human on our team who can give you a more definitive answer. In the meantime, you can check out the [Vapi Assistants API reference](https://docs.vapi.ai/api-reference/assistants/create?explorer=true) for more details on the available parameters.

Configure a short waitseconds in startSpeakingPlan (since values >5 error), enable voicemail detection, set a custom voicemail message, and control call duration. This ensures the assistant speaks once and lets the caller leave a message naturally..