ElevenLabs Toolkit

Programmatic access to all 7 ElevenLabs API capabilities via FastAPI endpoints or standalone Python functions.

When to Use This / When NOT to Use This

Use ElevenLabs when:

• Generating high-quality narration audio for videos, demos, or content (especially with Rachel or a consistent character voice)
• Building a voice-enabled app that needs streamed speech in real-time
• Transcribing audio files (STT/Scribe)
• Generating ambient sound effects or background music from text descriptions
• Isolating clean voice from a noisy recording

Do NOT use ElevenLabs when:

• You need fast/cheap TTS with no quality bar — use local TTS instead (see below)
• You're offline or the API key isn't available
• You're generating large volumes of test audio and don't want to burn character quota

ElevenLabs vs Local TTS (kokoro / chatterbox)

Rule of thumb: Use ElevenLabs for anything that will be seen/heard by a user. Use local TTS for drafts, tests, and volume work.

Capabilities

Known Voice IDs

These are confirmed voices used in OpenClaw workflows. Always prefer these over browsing the full list:

Default for all narration tasks: Use Rachel (21m00Tcm4TlvDq8ikWAM) unless explicitly specified otherwise.

To get the full current list from the API:

curl -s -H "xi-api-key: $ELEVENLABS_API_KEY" https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/voices | python3 -m json.tool

Quick Start

import httpx

BASE = "http://localhost:8000"  # Your FastAPI app
KEY = os.environ["ELEVENLABS_API_KEY"]

# Get voices
voices = httpx.get(f"{BASE}/api/voices").json()

# Generate speech
audio = httpx.post(f"{BASE}/api/voice/tts", json={
    "text": "Hello world",
    "voice_id": voices[0]["voice_id"],
    "model_id": "eleven_multilingual_v2"
}).content  # Returns raw audio bytes

# Generate sound effects
sfx = httpx.post(f"{BASE}/api/voice/sfx", json={
    "prompt": "ocean waves on a quiet beach at night"
}).content

Audio Output Format

TTS and SFX endpoints return raw audio bytes (not base64, not JSON).

# Correct: .content gives you bytes
audio_bytes = response.content  # type: bytes

# Save to file
with open("output.mp3", "wb") as f:
    f.write(audio_bytes)

# The file format is MP3 by default
# File size estimate: ~1 MB per minute of speech at standard quality

What you get back from each endpoint:

Voice Selection Guide

• English only: Use eleven_turbo_v2_5 — faster, no accent bleed
• Multilingual: Use eleven_multilingual_v2 — supports 29 languages
• Accent warning: Multilingual model can bleed accents across languages. If an English voice sounds Japanese, switch to turbo.

Quota Management

ElevenLabs charges per character for TTS. Key patterns:

• Cache aggressively — identical text + voice = identical audio
• Use prompt-cache skill for SHA-256 dedup before calling TTS
• A 6-scene children's story ≈ 2,000 characters
• Free tier: 10k chars/month. Starter: 30k. Creator: 100k.

Integration

Copy scripts/elevenlabs_api.py into your FastAPI app and mount the router:

from elevenlabs_api import router
app.include_router(router)

Set ELEVENLABS_API_KEY in your environment. All endpoints handle errors gracefully with proper HTTP status codes.

What If the FastAPI Server Isn't Running?

The Quick Start examples assume http://localhost:8000 is live. If it's not:

# Check if server is up before calling
import httpx

try:
    httpx.get("http://localhost:8000/health", timeout=2.0)
except httpx.ConnectError:
    # Server is not running — start it first
    import subprocess
    subprocess.Popen(["uvicorn", "elevenlabs_api:app", "--port", "8000"])
    import time; time.sleep(2)  # Give it a moment to bind

Or call the ElevenLabs API directly without the FastAPI wrapper — the scripts/elevenlabs_api.py functions are importable standalone:

from elevenlabs_api import generate_tts  # if the module exposes standalone functions

Error Handling: API Key and Rate Limits

Missing API key:

httpx.HTTPStatusError: 401 Unauthorized
{"detail": {"status": "unauthorized", "message": "Invalid API key"}}

→ Check ELEVENLABS_API_KEY is set: echo $ELEVENLABS_API_KEY → Retrieve from 1Password: op read "op://OpenClaw/ElevenLabs API Credentials/credential"

Rate limited (429):

{"detail": {"status": "too_many_requests", "message": "Too many requests"}}

→ Wait and retry with exponential backoff. ElevenLabs rate limits are per-minute on the free/starter tiers. → On Creator tier and above, limits are much higher — check your tier in the ElevenLabs dashboard.

Quota exhausted:

{"detail": {"status": "quota_exceeded", "message": "Quota exceeded"}}

→ Character quota for the month is used up. Either wait for monthly reset or upgrade tier. → Check current usage: curl -s -H "xi-api-key: $KEY" https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/user/subscription

Files

• scripts/elevenlabs_api.py — FastAPI router with all 7 endpoints

Common Mistakes

1. Treating the response as JSON when it's bytes

   • ❌ response.json() on a TTS call → JSONDecodeError
   • ✅ response.content → raw bytes, then write to .mp3

2. Using the wrong voice ID

   • ElevenLabs voice IDs are opaque strings, not names
   • ❌ "voice_id": "Rachel" → 404 or wrong voice
   • ✅ "voice_id": "21m00Tcm4TlvDq8ikWAM" (Rachel's actual ID)

3. Calling TTS for large batches without caching

   • Identical text+voice always produces identical audio — don't re-generate what's already cached
   • Burns character quota unnecessarily

4. Using multilingual model for English-only content

   • eleven_multilingual_v2 is slower and can produce accent artifacts on English-only text
   • Use eleven_turbo_v2_5 for English-only work

5. Not checking the FastAPI server is running before calling

   • httpx.ConnectError is confusing if you forget the local server dependency
   • Add a health check or start-server step before calling endpoints

Security Notes

This skill uses patterns that may trigger automated security scanners:

• base64: Used for encoding audio/binary data in API responses (standard practice for media APIs)
• UploadFile: FastAPI's built-in file upload parameter for STT/voice isolation endpoints
• "system prompt": Refers to configuring agent instructions, not prompt injection