VAPI Squad features
# office-hoursa
Abdalmalek Aburaddaha (Malek)
10/20/2025, 2:47 PMHi everyone! I'm building a multilingual driver assistance system with 4 languages.
I want users to switch languages mid-call. Based on docs, Squads seems perfect for this - I'd create a Squad with 5 members:
- Language Selector (detects preference)
- 4 language-specific assistants (each with native voice)
Questions:
1. Can I use assistantDestinations to route from selector to any of the 4 language assistants based on user choice?
2. How much latency should I expect during assistant transfer? (Target: <500ms)
3. Does conversation context (last 3-5 messages) transfer cleanly between assistants?
4. Can the user request language switch again later in the call (e.g., English → Hindi → French)?
Thanks!!
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arthur
10/20/2025, 8:13 PM1. i would recommend using handoff tools, assistantDestinations is not as versatile
2. handoffs should be pretty much instant, unless you are trying to extract variables, which will add latencyy
3. using handoff tool, you can change the strategy of the context managment (all, none, or last N messages)
4. depends on if your other assistants have handoff tools to other languages, I would look into dynamic handoffs if your graph is complex
https://docs.vapi.ai/tools/handoff
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Abdalmalek Aburaddaha (Malek)
10/21/2025, 1:32 PMHi @arthur
Thanks for the guidance! That's super helpful.
Quick clarification: For bidirectional language switching (e.g., English→Hindi→French→English),
do I need to add handoff tools to EVERY assistant pointing to ALL other languages?
So English Assistant would have 3 handoff tools (to Hindi, Punjabi, French),
and Hindi Assistant would also have 3 handoff tools (to English, Punjabi, French), etc.?
Also, for context engineering - would "lastNMessages" with count=5 be reasonable for language switching?
Want to maintain conversation context but not overwhelm with history.
Appreciate the help!
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arthur
10/21/2025, 4:51 PM> For bidirectional language switching (e.g., English→Hindi→French→English), do I need to add handoff tools to EVERY assistant pointing to ALL other languages?
if you want them all to be able to handoff to all other ones (forming a complete graph) then yes
arthur
10/21/2025, 4:52 PM> Also, for context engineering - would "lastNMessages" with count=5 be reasonable for language switching?
> Want to maintain conversation context but not overwhelm with history.
depends on how many turns are typically required before the handoff. highly dependent on your use case and your implementation
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Abdalmalek Aburaddaha (Malek)
10/21/2025, 6:08 PMThanks a lot for the clarification
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