Speech-to-Text API Timeouts: How to Bound Large Audio Uploads in Node.js

Short answer: treat a long recording as an upload job with explicit admission, transport, and inference stages. Reject an oversized file before opening a connection, put a short deadline around each network attempt, retry only transient responses, and show the user a clear fallback when transcription is unavailable. For supplier-invoice extraction, do not let a failed audio upload quietly become an empty invoice. There is an earlier gate, too. A route-shaped interface is not proof that a transcription capability is ready.