Generate a daily two-voice podcast in EN and FR based on the day's press review.

Daily Podcast Recipe

Overview

Generate a daily two-voice podcast in EN and FR based on the day's press review.

Voices

English

• Xavier (host 1): 29416c86-7536-4e5e-b5e7-4196654b2dfc
• Leen (host 2): 9c053607-1c72-4e27-8605-6cb59d4bff0b
• Hosts introduce themselves: "I'm Xavier" / "I'm Leen"

French

• Raymond Devos (host 1): bcf5b640-95ef-4756-8e95-3ef1411767b1
• Annie Cordy (host 2): b6100480-a429-44dd-9062-6888c14c8c20
• Hosts introduce themselves: "Ici Raymond Devos" / "Annie Cordy"

Unused (no Dutch TTS support)

• Arno (Flemish): 634cf08a-f580-4b60-bcab-2c42b98e130c
• Leen Flemish: 9ff3caaa-a069-4b75-8ed7-c27c765003f1

Voicebox API (localhost:8100)

Key endpoints

• POST /generate — generate one voice segment (profile_id, text, language, model_size)
• POST /stories — create a story (container for multiple segments)
• POST /stories/{id}/items — add a generation to a story
• GET /stories/{id}/export-audio — export assembled story as MP3

Text limit: 5000 chars per generation

Model: use 0.6B (the 1.7B is better but may need re-downloading after restarts)

Script Structure

1. Source text: Based on that day's press review at docs/press-reviews/YYYY-MM-DD-press-review.md
2. Format: 8-12 alternating segments between the two hosts, conversational tone
3. Content flow:
   • Intro: both hosts introduce themselves by name ONCE, mention it's the Manneken Podcast
   • Weather + urgent alerts (air quality, strikes, etc.)
   • Top stories (2-3 headlines)
   • Categories: Politics, Transport, Sport, Culture, Safety
   • Outro: both hosts sign off
4. IMPORTANT — No name prefixes in speech: Do NOT include "Xavier:", "Leen:", "Raymond:", "Annie:" labels in the generated text. Hosts introduce themselves ONCE at the start, then just alternate naturally. The listener hears different voices — they don't need name tags every turn.
5. Generation: Each segment → Voicebox /generate → collect generation IDs
6. Assembly: Create story → add all generation IDs as items → export as MP3
7. Output: Save to /opt/voicebox/podcasts/podcast-YYYY-MM-DD-{en,fr}.mp3

Script

scripts/generate-podcast.sh [YYYY-MM-DD] — generates both EN and FR podcasts.

Deployment

After generating, run bash scripts/deploy-site.sh to rebuild the website (podcast page scans /opt/voicebox/podcasts/).

Discord posting

Post the podcast to Discord by embedding the audio file directly as an attachment (not just a link). Use the message tool with filePath pointing to the MP3.

Daily cron

• Cron ID: b736464c-ffd4-40b8-9251-af529ed6d0f7
• Schedule: 07:05 CET daily
• Task: The cron should:
  1. Read today's press cache (docs/cache/press.md)
  2. Write the podcast script (alternating segments)
  3. Call Voicebox API to generate each segment
  4. Assemble into stories and export MP3s to /opt/voicebox/podcasts/
  5. Run bash scripts/deploy-site.sh
  6. Post to Discord

Important notes

• File naming MUST be podcast-YYYY-MM-DD-en.mp3 / podcast-YYYY-MM-DD-fr.mp3
• The Astro podcast page scans /opt/voicebox/podcasts/ (NOT /var/www/manneken/podcast/episodes/)
• Deploy script copies episodes from voicebox to the web dir
• Dutch is NOT supported by Qwen3-TTS (only zh/en/ja/ko/de/fr/ru/pt/es/it)
• ElevenLabs API key in docs/private/api-keys.json — only for Leen clone + Dutch if ever needed