Give Your Agent a Real Phone in China: ai-calls-china-phone

Where this fits

A user asks your agent to "call the restaurant to confirm my reservation" or "remind me about tomorrow's appointment." Your agent can send emails or messages, but not make an actual phone call to a mainland Chinese number. This skill bridges that gap: it lets your agent place a real, Chinese-speaking phone call using Stepone AI's telephony API, complete with transcription and per-call confirmation—so your agent can handle tasks that require a human voice on the other end.

Why agents benefit

• Real outbound calls to Chinese numbers: Dial any mainland mobile or landline directly, with AI-driven conversation in Mandarin.
• Per-call confirmation built in: Before each call, your agent must show the number, purpose, and cost, and wait for explicit user approval—no accidental dialing.
• Follow-up and status queries: Check call transcripts, call status, and balance after the call happens, so your agent can report results back cleanly.
• Inbound call handling: Configure a shared or dedicated inbound number to let the AI receive calls, greet callers, and take messages.
• Integrated with agent memory: Since calls are recorded and transcribed, your agent can store outcomes and use them for future decisions.

Practical scenarios

Booking a table or appointment

A user says "Call the dentist to move my appointment to Thursday." The agent shows the number and purpose, gets confirmation, dials, negotiates the new time with the receptionist, and returns the confirmed slot.

Order status notification

An e-commerce agent proactively calls customers to notify them about a delayed shipment. It reads a polite script, answers basic questions, and logs whether the customer accepted the information or asked for a callback.

Authorized customer follow-up

A service agent calls a client who hasn't paid an invoice. It confirms the customer's identity, reminds them gently, and transcribes any objections for the human operator to review later.

Add it to your agent workflow

Install the skill:

npx skills add ustczz/openclaw-ai-calls-china-phone --skill ai-calls-china-phone

Set the required environment variable (STEPONEAI_API_KEY), then use it your skill runner. A minimal usage:

ai-calls-china-phone call --number 13800138000 --purpose "Confirm reservation" --confirm

The --confirm flag only appears after the user has explicitly approved the call details in the conversation.

For an overview of this skill and similar automation capabilities, visit its listing on OpenAgentSkill.

Compare before adopting

• Quality signals: Check the repository's issue tracker and recent commits—does the author fix API changes promptly? The skill depends on Stepone AI's endpoints, so responsiveness matters.
• Maintenance freshness: The README and env vars suggest active updates, but verify last commit date and any version tags.
• Alternatives: For non-Chinese or overseas numbers, clawcall-ai-phone-calls is the recommended skill—review both to see which fits your user base.
• Workflow fit: Ensure your agent can handle async call results (transcripts and status) and that latency is acceptable for your interaction pattern.

Why it is worth tracking

With 12 stars and a clear README, this skill is early but focused. Its key strength is the explicit confirmation guardrail, which reduces risk in production. Watch for increasing community feedback, a growing number of contributed examples, and any extension to other telephony services. Evaluate it when you need to add real call capability to a Chinese-facing agent—starting with the free trial calls is a low-cost way to test its reliability.