I’ve hit a bit of a wall with the VAPI call platform and wanted to see if anyone else here has dealt with this or found a workaround.
The challenge:
I’m trying to dynamically switch the agent’s idle messages (the “are you still there?”-type prompts triggered after user silence) based on the user’s detected language mid-call (English ↔️ Spanish). But as far as I can tell, VAPI only lets you set idle messages at call creation or in the assistant config—not update them in real time after the call starts.
What I’ve tried:
• PATCH-ing the call with new idleMessages/messagePlan fields (400 error, unsupported)
• Using the Control API to inject a message (but it fires immediately, not on silence)
• Re-reading the docs and searching for an “assistantOverrides” or similar runtime endpoint—no luck so far
Why this matters:
• Many calls start in one language and switch after we detect the user’s preference.
• We want the automatic idle prompts to match the active language without restarting the call (which would be awkward for the user).
Questions:
• Has anyone found a way to update idle message config at runtime, or trigger language-specific idle prompts based on in-call detection?
• Any hacks or alternative patterns for handling this (besides ending/restarting the call)?
• Is there a VAPI roadmap or existing feature request for this? If not, anyone want to join forces to request it?