Audio Transcription

Use When

• The input is audio and the main job is speech-to-text, subtitle-ready timing, rough speech search, multilingual transcription, or durable transcript artifacts.
• Use video-transcription for video inputs and media-analysis for semantic video understanding.

Do Not Use When

• The task belongs to ideation, QA, or another released skill listed in the handoff section.
• Required inputs are missing and guessing would change the result.

Execution Boundary

• Hosted transcription runs through the public postplus media transcribe verb and is async. A submit records the run handle, current status, and completed artifacts when available.
• Pass a local path, HTTPS URL, existing PostPlus media reference, or data URI directly to --audio. The CLI validates and prepares local media before the single hosted submit.
• A higher-quality default model and a faster, cheaper variant are available; prefer the default when subtitle quality matters and use the cheaper variant for an explicit rough pass. The generated example below shows the default endpoint key.

Source And Path

• Supply the media duration so PostPlus can validate the request before it runs; a missing duration fails before submission.
• Request timestamps when the output will feed subtitles or edit decisions.
• Start with one source file or audio URL before larger batches.
• Keep internal requests, responses, manifests, normalized transcripts, and downloaded artifacts under .postplus/audio-transcription; keep final user-facing transcript exports outside .postplus.

Handoff

• If status is pending, return the manifest path, the output.data.id generation handle, and the poll command postplus media poll --handle <output.data.id> (waits in-command up to 45s per invocation; rerun while pending). Do not keep the conversation open just to poll.
• When completed, hand off downloaded artifacts and normalizedTranscriptPath to subtitle-packager if SRT/ASS is needed.

Stop Conditions

• Stop when required user intent, source evidence, or owned input artifacts are missing and guessing would change the result.
• If an owned CLI or script command still fails after any bounded recovery allowed by the executing PostPlus skill, report the exact error and stop. Do not bypass the failure with metadata-only answers, readiness probing, local payload rewrites, alternate execution paths, or unpublished tools.

Public Command Boundary

• Choose the smallest matching command or workflow from the user input and run it directly.
• Readiness diagnostics: postplus doctor --skill audio-transcription.
• If an owned CLI or script command still fails after any bounded recovery allowed by the executing PostPlus skill, report the exact error and stop. Do not bypass the failure with metadata-only answers, readiness probing, local payload rewrites, alternate execution paths, or unpublished tools.
• Use postplus media schema --json only when you need the full endpoint, flag, and enum contract or are repairing an unknown request shape.
• Run the hosted transcription job with the generated command below; do not use another execution interface.
• Pass the source directly through --audio; do not pre-upload it or construct a manual request object.

postplus media transcribe transcription \
  --audio ./reference.wav \
  --duration-seconds 1 \
  --wait \
  --output ./result.json

Bounded recovery: Current PostPlus CLIs handle a compatible update and retry the command once when no agent-session restart is required. If an older CLI only reports that an update is required, run postplus update and retry once under the same condition. For a missing or invalid CLI session, run postplus auth login yourself; it opens the browser by default. Immediately share its exact URL as a clickable link for the user to Connect, then retry the original command once only after the CLI confirms success. Never ask the user to run the command or enter/compare a code, approve the connection for them, or automatically restart a cancelled/expired login. For a local usage rejection before remote work starts, use that command's --help to make one unambiguous correction from existing user input and retry once.

If PostPlus returns postplus_cli_balance_required with an open_url user action, give the user its exact label and URL and stop for account action. Do not invent a checkout link, claim whether provider work or charging occurred, or blindly resubmit after payment; continue from the command's documented status or checkpoint once the user confirms credits are available.

Otherwise stop and report the exact error. Never expose login polling secrets, resubmit an operation when remote work may have started, change user intent, bypass approval, switch providers, rewrite payloads, or make a second recovery attempt. After success, briefly say that PostPlus updated, using only the official update details PostPlus reported.

• If the CLI returns a quote-confirmation challenge, run postplus quote confirm --json --challenge-file <challenge.json> and retry with the returned token.