Play.ht Text to Speech API
64
AI ReadinessAI-Aware (B)64/100
Agent-ready OpenAPI document · curated by JenticAI/MLSpeechbearer, apiKey13 EndpointsREST
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For Agents
Generate or stream speech from text in a chosen Play.ht voice, clone a voice from an audio sample, batch many speech jobs, and timestamp audio files. Covers voice listing, job status, and legacy v1 conversion.
Use for: I need to turn this article into an mp3 voiceover, Stream speech for a chatbot reply in real time, Clone my voice from a short audio sample, List all available Play.ht voices
Not supported: Does not handle phone call routing, music generation, or speech translation. Use for text-to-speech, voice cloning, and audio timestamping only.
Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI specification for Play.ht Text to Speech API, keeping it validated and agent-ready. The Play.ht API converts text into spoken audio with a choice of voice, quality, output format, speed, and voice engine, either as an asynchronous job you poll or as a real-time audio stream. Engines include Play3.0-mini, PlayHT2.0, and PlayHT1.0, and output formats include mp3, wav, ogg, flac, and mulaw. The API also creates instant voice clones from an uploaded audio sample, runs batches of up to 50 speech jobs, and produces timestamped transcriptions from an audio URL, alongside legacy v1 conversion operations.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the Play.ht Text to Speech API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Play.ht Text to Speech API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
1
Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fplay.ht%2Fplay" | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fplay.ht%2Fplay" | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with Play.ht Text to Speech API.
Generate speech from text as an asynchronous job with a chosen voice, quality from draft to premium, output_format, speed, and voice_engine
Stream speech audio bytes in real time from text for low-latency playback
Clone a voice instantly from an uploaded sample_file and a voice_name, then list or delete your cloned voices
Submit between 1 and 50 text-to-speech jobs in a single batch request
Create a timestamped transcription job from an audio_url and fetch its result by job id
List the stock Play.ht voices available for synthesis
Use Cases
Patterns agents use Play.ht Text to Speech API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Agent-Driven Voiceover via Jentic
An AI agent producing narrated content takes a script, picks a voice from the Play.ht voice list, and creates a speech job with the chosen voice_engine and output_format. Through Jentic the agent polls the job by id until the audio is ready and hands back the file, while the bearer token and user id stay with your own instance.
List voices, create a generateAudio job for a 1,500-character script with voice_engine PlayHT2.0, quality high, and output_format mp3, then poll getTtsJob until the audio is ready
Real-Time Voice for Conversational Apps
Voice assistants and phone bots need audio as soon as a reply is written. The streamAudio operation returns audio bytes over HTTP as they are generated, and the mulaw output format suits telephony pipelines, so a reply can start playing before the full clip has been synthesised.
Stream a 200-character reply with streamAudio using voice_engine Play3.0-mini and output_format mulaw and pipe the bytes to the call
Custom Brand Voice with Instant Cloning
Creators and companies that want audio in a specific voice upload a sample_file with a voice_name to create an instant clone, then use the returned voice in speech jobs. Cloned voices can be listed and deleted when they are no longer needed.
Create an instant voice clone from a sample recording with voice_name 'Brand Narrator', then generate an mp3 of a welcome message using the cloned voice
Bulk Audio for Catalogues and Courses
Teams converting many short texts, such as product descriptions or course lessons, submit them together with the batchTts operation, which accepts between 1 and 50 jobs per batch. Text limits per job depend on the engine: up to 20k characters for Play3.0-mini and 2000 characters for other engines.
Submit a batchTts request with 30 lesson scripts using the same voice and collect each resulting audio file
Key Endpoints
13 endpoints — jentic publishes the only available openapi specification for play.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
POST
/api/v2/tts
Create a text-to-speech job
GET
/api/v2/tts/{id}
Get speech job status and audio
POST
/api/v2/tts/stream
Stream audio from text
POST
/api/v2/tts/batches
Submit a batch of speech jobs
GET
/api/v2/voices
List Play.ht voices
POST
/api/v2/cloned-voices/instant
Create an instant voice clone
POST
/api/v2/transcriptions
Create a timestamp transcription job
POST
/api/v2/tts
Create a text-to-speech job
GET
/api/v2/tts/{id}
Get speech job status and audio
POST
/api/v2/tts/stream
Stream audio from text
POST
/api/v2/tts/batches
Submit a batch of speech jobs
GET
/api/v2/voices
List Play.ht voices
POST
/api/v2/cloned-voices/instant
Create an instant voice clone
POST
/api/v2/transcriptions
Create a timestamp transcription job
Jentic AI Readiness Score
This API is usable in Jentic One now. Its AI-readiness score against Jentic's framework shows where it stands today and where improvements would make it even easier for agents to use.
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Play.ht Text to Speech API
- AI-Aware (B)64/100
93
Foundational Compliance57
Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility48
AI-Readiness & Agent Experience94
Agent Usability55
Security70
AI DiscoverabilityPowered by JenticScoring Framework 1.0.0 | Scoring Engine 0.4.2
Show dimension breakdown
93
Foundational Compliance
Base layer of spec validity and structural soundness.
Grade: A+Signals: 4
98%
Lint Results
Aggregated quality score from linter diagnostics, weighted by severity.
100%
Resolution Completeness
Percentage of `$ref` references that resolve successfully.
100%
Specification Validity
Checks whether the API description parses successfully and conforms to its declared specification (e.g., OpenAPI).
75%
Structural Integrity
Structural correctness score based on schema issues using logarithmic dampening.
57
Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility
Clarity, completeness, and ingestion readiness for developers and tooling.
Grade: C+Signals: 4
0%
Example Density
How richly the API is illustrated with examples.
100%
Example Validity
Percentage of examples that conform to their schemas.
29%
Response Coverage
Percentage of operations with complete response definitions (success, client error, server error).
100%
Tooling Readiness
Health of API ingestion, bundling, and resolution within Jentic pipelines.
48
AI-Readiness & Agent Experience
Semantic breadth, depth, and agent comprehension for AI systems.
Grade: D+Signals: 4
42%
Description Coverage
Coverage of descriptions across API elements.
0%
Error Standardization
Coverage of RFC 9457 Problem Details for error responses.
100%
OperationId Quality
Coverage, uniqueness, and casing consistency of operationIds for AI inference.
50%
Summary Coverage
Coverage of summaries across operations/tags/info.
94
Agent Usability
Functional utility, complexity comfort, and AI orchestration readiness.
Grade: A+Signals: 1
94%
Complexity Comfort
Agent comfort level based on API operational and structural complexity.
55
Security
Trust, risk posture, and security compliance.
Grade: CSignals: 1
55%
Authentication Strength
Average quality of security schemes based on authentication method strength (weakest link for OAuth2).
70
AI Discoverability
Findability, semantic richness, and reasoning readiness.
Grade: A-Signals: 1
70%
Descriptive Richness
Clarity and depth of descriptions across API elements.
Score it yourself
Every API in the directory is allowlisted, so you can re-score it with no key required.
npx @jentic/api-scorecard-cli score <openapi-url>Why Jentic?
What agents get from Jentic-routed access to this vendor.
Setup
Wiring Play.ht by hand means sending both a bearer token and an X-USER-ID header, choosing a voice engine within its text limits, and polling asynchronous jobs or handling a byte stream. Through Jentic you install once, import Play.ht from the API Directory, store the credentials once, and your agent generates speech.
Permission scoping
Play.ht puts the cloned voice id in the URL path (/api/v2/cloned-voices/{voice_id}), but speech text and voice choice travel in the request body, so rules bound which operations your agent may call rather than which voice it speaks with. You choose the operations it may call, so voice cloning and clone deletion are not included unless you add them.
Credential isolation
Your Play.ht bearer token and user id are stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. They never enter the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'convert text to speech' or 'clone a voice', and Jentic returns the matching Play.ht operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using Play.ht Text to Speech API through Jentic.
Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for Play.ht Text to Speech API?
Play.ht does not publish an OpenAPI specification. Jentic generates and maintains this spec so that AI agents and developers can call Play.ht Text to Speech API via structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. To run it on your own infrastructure, install Jentic One from its GitHub repo.
What authentication does the Play.ht API use?
The Play.ht API declares two security schemes in its OpenAPI spec: a bearer token sent in the Authorization header, and a user id sent as an apiKey in the X-USER-ID header. Both values come from the API access page of your Play.ht account. Through Jentic the token and user id are stored encrypted on your own instance and injected at call time.
Is there a Play.ht MCP server?
You don't need an MCP server to give your agent Play.ht. Jentic connects it directly from the API Directory: import Play.ht, store your credentials once, and your agent can generate speech straight away. Operations are discovered on demand, so no extra server's tool definitions sit in your agent's context.
Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Play.ht API?
Yes. Write a rule that allows only listVoices, generateAudio, and getTtsJob, so the agent can pick a voice, create speech, and fetch the result but cannot create or delete cloned voices, and every call it makes is logged.
How much text can one Play.ht speech job take?
Per the spec, a generateAudio job accepts up to 20k characters with the Play3.0-mini engine and 2000 characters with other engines. For more content, split it into several jobs or submit them together with batchTts, which takes between 1 and 50 jobs.
What are the rate limits for the Play.ht API?
The Play.ht OpenAPI spec does not specify rate limits. Check https://docs.play.ht for the current limits on your plan.
How do I generate speech with the Play.ht API through Jentic?
Search Jentic for an intent like 'convert text to speech', import Play.ht, and store your bearer token and user id once. Your agent then calls generateAudio at /api/v2/tts with text and a voice id from listVoices, and polls getTtsJob at /api/v2/tts/{id} for the audio.
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