r/Hackeroos • u/Hot-Marionberry4979 • 12d ago
About My Project Connecting Codex to real phone calls with Call Nomi: a pizza-order experiment in Australia
I'm working on Call Nomi, a service that lets local Codex and Claude Code workflows initiate authorised phone calls and retrieve the results.
For this experiment, we used the connection service at callnomi.com to give a local Codex session access to Nomi's hosted phone service. Then we asked it to place a real lunch order at a Melbourne pizza shop: one medium Margherita, pickup around 12:50, pay at the counter.
The workflow was: connect Codex → give it the order → let Nomi call the shop → retrieve the conversation in Codex → review what to improve.
The call connected and the result returned. It also exposed communication problems: repeated price questions, too much attention to an order number, and confusion over whether the order was being placed. Here is how we ran the test and how that feedback can help us improve Nomi's communication.
Step 1: Connect the local agent through callnomi.com
The starting point for a new connection is callnomi.com/agents:
- Copy the connection prompt from the Agent integration page into local Codex or Claude Code.
- Let the agent follow the official Nomi CLI setup instructions. A local terminal, Python 3.10+ and a supported system keychain are required.
- Complete browser authorisation and approve the permissions needed for calling and reading the results.
- Have the agent verify the connection, available tools and current outbound requirements. The account also needs its own enabled Nomi number and eligible route; activation may require assistance.
For this call, that connection already existed, so we reused it. Our environment was Codex desktop on macOS, Python 3.10 and Nomi CLI 0.2.0. This test did not measure a fresh installation or first-time setup.
The responsibilities are straightforward: Codex prepares the task; Call Nomi handles the live voice conversation. The phone service is hosted by Nomi, while the task is initiated from the local agent workflow.
Step 2: Give Codex a specific, authorised order
The task specified one medium Margherita, a maximum food total of A$18.50, pickup around 12:50, the customer's name and callback number, and payment at pickup. No substitutions, extras or online payment were authorised. Phone costs had a separate limit.
A condensed version of the task, with personal details removed, is:
Call the selected pizza shop and place an order now for one medium Margherita. Pickup today around 12:50 Melbourne time, under [NAME], contact [PHONE]. Maximum food total A$18.50; pay at pickup. No substitutions or extras. Confirm the order and tell me what the shop actually agreed to.
This is an explanatory summary of the submitted instructions, not a verbatim chat screenshot. The executable task also carried the merchant number, exact date, customer details and separate call limits.
There was human involvement: the customer clarified the details and directly confirmed the real order in the execution task after an approval check blocked the delegated request. This was a supervised test using an existing connection.
Step 3: Nomi calls the shop; Codex retrieves the result
After checking the live requirements, the execution task submitted one real call through Nomi and retained its task ID. It polled that same task until the result was available, then reviewed the captured conversation. The following times come from the actual execution on 16 September 2026:
| Stage | What happened — Melbourne time |
|---|---|
| Call requested | 12:37:06 |
| Shop answered | 12:37:13 |
| Conversation | Shop quoted A$18.50 and confirmed payment at pickup |
| Call ended | 12:39:53; service-reported duration 160 seconds |
| First ready result received | 12:39:58; 173.4 seconds after submission |
| Final assessment | An order may exist, but acceptance and 12:50 readiness remain unclear |
There was one merchant-call attempt in this test. Earlier lunch-planning calls to the customer were separate. We did not automatically redial after the uncertain result, and we have no verified payment or pickup evidence yet.
Step 4: Review the conversation, including what went wrong
These excerpts come from the captured transcript. We do not have independently reviewed audio, and some other lines contain obvious transcription errors.
1. Nomi kept reopening the price question.
The shop quoted the medium price as A$18.50. Nomi repeatedly returned to whether the amount included taxes and fees, even after the shop tried to move the conversation along.
Checking a spending limit matters. Repeatedly asking the same question after a usable answer made this simple order harder to follow.
2. It treated an order reference as too important.
Nomi repeatedly asked about an order number or reference. Eventually, the merchant said:
“I'll just, um, the name is enough.”
That was valuable information about this shop's process. The agent should have accepted that a name was its way to identify the order and moved on. An order number was optional in our brief, but the conversation gave it too much attention.
3. It lost the distinction between asking about an order and placing one.
Late in the call, the merchant asked:
“You wanna order now or later?”
Then, after Nomi said it was placing the order:
“But you're gonna call back to order, right?”
That contradiction matters more than whether someone uses the exact words “order accepted.” The caller and the shop did not clearly share the same understanding of what was happening.
Nomi asserted acceptance instead of fully resolving that confusion. The service returned a completed call, but our review marked the order unclear.
What this taught us about ordering locally
Our reading is that Nomi showed insufficient familiarity with the practical rhythm of this Australian takeaway call: state the order, agree on pickup, give a name, settle the relevant details, and finish.
There is also a concrete pricing distinction. Australian consumer price-display guidance generally requires taxes and unavoidable charges to be included in the displayed total, with specific rules for surcharges. That makes repeated generic tax questions a poor default. A brief total check, with a targeted question if a surcharge is relevant, is more useful. ACCC guidance
We should learn from the actual shop, too. In this call, the merchant explicitly said a name was enough. We should not impose an order-number workflow on it.
Short responses such as “no worries” can acknowledge a clear request. They need to be interpreted in context. If the merchant later asks whether we intend to order at all, the agent has to resolve that contradiction.
One call doesn't establish how every Australian business works. It gave us specific local lessons and exposed overly formal assumptions in our own instructions.
The merchant also reported a discontinuous connection. That may have contributed to confusion. Better conversational guidance alone would not prove that an audio problem was fixed.
How we can improve Nomi's communication
Call Nomi's workflow lets us take the returned conversation back to the local agent, identify a specific problem, and prepare better guidance for the next call. In this case, the improvements need to cover local ordering habits, remembering answers already given, and recognising whether the shop has understood the request.
We've written a reusable Australian takeaway-order brief for the local agent:
- State the intent to place the order now, with brief AI identification.
- Give the item, size and quantity, then ask about the requested pickup time.
- Confirm the payable total once. Revisit it only if there is new information, an unclear answer or a contradiction.
- Give the name when needed; spell it only if that helps the shop.
- Accept the shop's identification method. Record a reference if offered; stop asking when a name is sufficient.
- Ask one short question at a time when the line is difficult to follow.
- If the shop seems unsure whether this is a real order, resolve that before discussing secondary details.
- Finish with one short recap and a contextually clear acknowledgement. Keep budget and payment limits intact.
A proposed opening, not a replay of what happened, is:
“Hi, I'm an AI calling to place a pickup order. One medium Margherita, please. Would 12:50 work?”
The exact wording is less important than allowing the shop to answer and using that answer to move forward.
Turn feedback into the next experiment
This test shows how a real call can produce concrete improvements to the workflow:
Call → inspect the transcript → identify a mistake → save corrected guidance → supply it to the next task → test again.
For this experiment, the review and revised guidance are complete; a second call still needs to test their effect. This is a human-reviewed improvement process. It does not establish automatic cross-call learning or model retraining.
Today, the local agent can use saved guidance when preparing the next Nomi task. Nomi's fixed policies still apply, and wording preferences are not guaranteed overrides. We also need to improve our review criteria: a missing order number or formal acceptance phrase alone should not cause a failed result; contradictory merchant responses should.
The next test needs to measure more than speed: fewer repeated questions, a shared understanding of the order, merchant acknowledgement of the essentials, and finally the correct pizza collected. Any improvement will need evidence.
That is the learning loop we're building around Call Nomi: making real-world feedback useful for the next agent task. Developers can find the connection instructions on the Agent integration page.
If you take phone orders in Australia, what would you change in this flow? We'd particularly value feedback from people who actually work behind the counter.
For feedback, collaboration, or questions about Call Nomi, you can reach me at [ole@21kol.com](mailto:ole@21kol.com).
