Best Practices

Best practices, tips, and recommendations for using the KI-AVA Amharic API effectively.

Job-based workflow

  • Poll the status endpoint at reasonable intervals (e.g. every 10–30 seconds) until completed or failed
  • Download transcript JSON from transcript_urls soon after completion; signed URLs expire (e.g. 24 hours)
  • Implement proper error handling and retry logic for failed jobs or network errors
  • Respect rate limits (100 jobs/hour, 10 concurrent jobs per API key) and use exponential backoff if needed

Audio quality

  • Use high-quality audio files for better transcription accuracy
  • Ensure audio is in a supported format (.aac, .flac, .m4a, .mp3, .mp4, .mkv, .wav, .webm, .3gpp)
  • Minimize background noise when possible
  • For best results, use audio with clear speech; max 1GB per file

Security

  • Never expose API keys in client-side code
  • Store keys securely using environment variables
  • Rotate API keys regularly
  • Use different keys for development and production
  • Monitor API key usage for suspicious activity

Performance

  • Submit multiple files in one job (up to 100 audio_urls) for batch processing
  • Use the results array in the status response for per-file progress and metadata
  • Optimize audio file sizes and use public or pre-signed URLs that are reliably accessible

Error handling

  • Always check response status codes and the job status and error fields
  • Handle rate limit and validation errors (e.g. 422) gracefully
  • Implement retry logic with exponential backoff for transient failures
  • Log errors for debugging and monitoring

For more information, check out our other guides and the API Reference.