> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ryvo.so/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Naturalness

> The guidance Ryvo adds to your agent so it sounds like a person: date and time, numbers, email addresses and tone. It's on by default.

Every agent gets a set of guidance at the end of its prompt that makes it sound more natural, without you having to write it. It's on by default, and each part can be turned off in the **Naturalness** section of the Builder.

## The five parts

| Part | Where it applies | What it does |
| - | - | - |
| **Date and time** | Voice and chat | Knows the current day and time in your agent's time zone, with a calendar of the next two weeks. It books "on Thursday" or "the day after tomorrow" without mistakes, and when in doubt it confirms with the date ("Thursday the 22nd?"). |
| **Natural conversation** | Voice and chat | Acknowledges without repeating the same words, avoids robotic lines, uses contractions, asks the caller to repeat what it didn't catch instead of guessing and, if asked whether it's a person, doesn't deny being a virtual assistant. |
| **How to speak** | Voice | Short replies, one question at a time, and no lists, emojis or links read out loud. |
| **Numbers out loud** | Voice | Phone, reference and confirmation numbers digit by digit; money as a full amount with its currency; dates and times said the way people say them. |
| **Email addresses out loud** | Voice | Puts together the email the caller dictates, confirms it by spelling what comes before the @, and clarifies letters that sound alike ("B as in boy"). |

Numbers and email addresses only apply on calls: in a chat they are read as written, and spelling them out would make no sense.

## A safety net before the voice

If the model still writes bold text, bullets, links or digits in a voice reply, Ryvo cleans the text right before the voice, using the same **How to speak** and **Numbers out loud** switches: it strips the formatting and says phone and reference numbers digit by digit, amounts with their currency (`$` is pesos in Spanish and dollars in English; `USD` and `MXN` win), percentages and times. Anything it can't recognize safely is left as is. Your transcript always shows the original text.

## On the call

Three more settings in the same section, for voice calls only:

| Setting | Default | What it does |
| - | - | - |
| **Speaks while it checks** | On | If a tool takes a while, the agent says a short line ("Let me check.") instead of going silent. If the tool has its own line under "While it runs", that one is used. |
| **Nods along while listening** | Off | When someone talks for a while, the agent drops a short "uh-huh" or "mm-hmm" into a brief pause. It never interrupts, never takes the turn and doesn't count as a reply. If you use an open speaker or a line with echo, try it on a test call first. |
| **Your business words** | On | Ryvo adds your business name, your agent's name and the terms from your pronunciation rules to the transcriber's keywords, so it understands them even when they're unusual. It applies today to the Deepgram engines that accept keywords. |

## See what your agent receives

**View text**, on each row, opens the exact text your agent receives, in its language. If your prompt says otherwise, your prompt wins: the guidance comes after your instructions and says so to the model.

## The time zone

Your agent reads "today", "tomorrow" and the time in its time zone. By default it's **automatic**: the one in your calling hours if you set them and, if not, the main one for the agent's language (Mexico City for Spanish, New York for English). If your business is somewhere else, pick it in **Naturalness › Time zone**.

The same time zone fills the `{{system__time_local}}` variable in your prompt.

## System variables on calls

`{{system__time_local}}`, `{{system__channel}}` and `{{system__caller}}` are also filled in on voice calls. On a call, `{{system__caller}}` is the person's number: the caller on an inbound call, the person being called on an outbound call. On the widget and in browser tests it's empty.

## More settings that help

In their own sections of the Builder:

* **Voice settings**: background sound, wait before replying, interruptions, silence reminder and pronunciation.
* **Fine voice tuning**: expressive voice, stability and speed.
* **Real-time transcription**: the engine that listens and your business keywords.

## Good to know

* It's guidance to the model, not a filter: it works well in normal use, but a model won't always follow it to the letter.
* A change here is published like any other agent setting.
* You can also ask Node: "turn off email spelling for Sofia" or "set the time zone to Bogota".


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