setup-vapi-assistant

Setup the Claude-PA Vapi dispatcher assistant

The phone-call tiers (user_call, spouse_call) need a Vapi assistant whose persona is dispatcher calling about the user, NOT a clone of the user. This skill creates or updates that assistant and stores its id in config.

Prerequisites

• VAPI_API_KEY exported (lives in $CLAUDE_PA_HOME/env, sourced by ~/.bashrc).
• The vapi MCP server is registered in this repo's .mcp.json. The available tools you'll use:
  • mcp__*__vapi__list_assistants
  • mcp__*__vapi__create_assistant
  • mcp__*__vapi__update_assistant
  • mcp__*__vapi__list_phone_numbers
  • mcp__*__vapi__get_assistant

The exact MCP tool name prefix depends on the host MCP namespace. Use whatever tool family is currently available; the function names above are the suffixes to match on.

Steps

1. Load the system prompt

Read templates/vapi/system-prompt.md from the plugin root (resolve via $PLUGIN_ROOT if needed; the file ships with the plugin). This is the dispatcher persona prompt with {{user_name}} / {{callee_name}} / {{callee_role}} placeholders that Vapi expands at call time via assistantOverrides.variableValues.

2. Find or create the assistant

• Call list_assistants and look for one named Claude-PA Dispatcher.

• If it exists: call update_assistant to refresh the system prompt to the current shipped version (so re-running this skill always gets you the latest). Capture the existing id.

• If not: call create_assistant with:

  • name: "Claude-PA Dispatcher"
  • firstMessage: a short, in-character opener — e.g. "Hi — this is dispatch calling on behalf of {{user_name}}'s computer. Is that {{callee_name}}?"
  • firstMessageMode: "assistant-speaks-first"
  • instructions: the full content of system-prompt.md
  • llm: { "provider": "openai", "model": "gpt-4o" } (or current best)
  • voice: pick a male, gruff, dispatcher-y voice (suggest 11labs / cartesia — confirm with the user if multiple voices are reasonable)
  • transcriber: default

  Capture the new id.

3. Pick a phone number

Call list_phone_numbers. If exactly one is active, use it. If multiple, ask the user which to use as the outbound caller for Claude-PA.

4. Write back to config

Edit $CLAUDE_PA_HOME/config.json with jq (atomic via tmp file). Write to the top-level vapi block — both user_call and spouse_call inherit from it:

"vapi": { "api_key_env": "VAPI_API_KEY", "assistant_id": "<id>", "phone_number_id": "<id>" }

Per-target overrides (user_call.vapi.assistant_id, spouse_call.vapi.assistant_id) are supported but should stay null unless the user explicitly wants a different assistant for one target. Preserve all other fields (enabled, user_name, user_phone, spouse_name, spouse_phone, etc.) — don't blow them away.

bin/pa-phone-call.sh resolves the id via:

${BLOCK}.vapi.assistant_id // .vapi.assistant_id

so the top-level value is the default and per-target is the override.

5. (Optional) test call

Ask the user if they want to test. If yes, run:

bin/pa-phone-call.sh user --confirm

Their phone should ring from the Vapi number. The opening line should address them by name and identify the caller as dispatch, not as the user.

If the persona is wrong, the most likely cause is that an older assistant is still being reused — re-run this skill so the system prompt is updated, or check the assistant in the Vapi dashboard.

Notes

• The shipped bin/pa-phone-call.sh does not currently pass assistantOverrides.variableValues. The variables in the system prompt ({{user_name}}, {{callee_name}}, {{callee_role}}) will substitute as empty strings unless we extend the script to pass them. That's a follow-up — for now, the assistant should still behave as a dispatcher because the system prompt is unambiguous about the role even with blank variables. Track that as a known limitation.

• Never write VAPI_API_KEY (or any other secret) into config.json, .mcp.json, or any file inside the plugin repo. It belongs in $CLAUDE_PA_HOME/env only.