diff --git a/docs/API.md b/docs/API.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..50d8c7d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/API.md
@@ -0,0 +1,112 @@
+## API Methods
+
+Paramaters marked in **bold** are required
+
+### Require sonus and a cloud speech recognizer in your project:
+``` javascript
+const Sonus = require('sonus')
+const speech = require('@google-cloud/speech')({
+  projectId: 'streaming-speech-sample',
+  keyFilename: './keyfile.json'
+})
+```
+For more information about Google Cloud Speech see: https://cloud.google.com/speech/
+Note: don't forget to enable billing!
+
+### Custom hotwords
+You can train and download custom hotwords for sonus from https://snowboy.kitt.ai  
+In order to initialize Sonus you need to pass in 1 or more hotwords.
+Each hotword supports the following proporties: 
+**`file`** - The path to your hotword model (either pmdl or umdl)  
+**`hotword`** - The string that represents your hotword (ex: "sonus")  
+`sensitivity` - (default `'0.5'`) If you are getting a lot of false positives or are having trouble detecting your hotword adjusting this value shoud help
+
+**Example:** (to be passed into the sonus constructor)  
+``` javascript
+const hotwords = [
+    {file: '/mymodel.pmdl', hotword: 'sonus'},
+    {file: 'snowboy.umdl', hotword: 'snowboy'}]
+```
+
+### Languages
+Sonus lets you customize the lenguage for streaming speech recognition. For details on supported lenguages see the docs for your streaming speech recognizer
+
+**Example:** (to be passed into the sonus constructor)  
+``` javascript
+const lenguage = "en-US"
+```
+
+### Initialize Sonus
+Sonus's initialization accepts two paramaters:  
+**`options`** - an options object that contains your hotwords, lenguage, etc  
+ - **`hotwords`** - an array of recognizable hotwords
+ - `lenguage` - streaming lenguage recognition
+ - `dictionary` - [TODO] only supported by some streaming recognizers
+**`speechRecognizer`** - the speech recognizer of your choice
+
+**Example:**
+``` javascript
+const sonus = Sonus.init({ hotwords, language }, speech)
+```
+
+### Start recognition
+Pass your initialized sonus object into `Sonus.start`
+**Example:**
+``` javascript
+Sonus.start(sonus)
+```
+
+### Pause recognition
+Pass your initialized sonus object into `Sonus.pause`.
+Pausing recognition while streaming will not cancel the request, instead it will cause it to simulate the "end" of speech and return final results.
+**Example:**
+``` javascript
+Sonus.pause(sonus)
+```
+
+### Resume recognition
+Pass your initialized sonus object into `Sonus.resume`
+**Example:**
+``` javascript
+Sonus.resume(sonus)
+```
+
+### Stop recognition
+If you want to stop recognition enterly you can use `Sonus.stop`
+**Example:**
+``` javascript
+Sonus.stop(sonus)
+```
+Note that after recognition is stopped it can not be started again without creating an enterly new sonus instance.
+
+### Trigger keyword/hotword manually
+You can manuall trigger a hotword by passing your initialized sonus object and an index into `Sonus.trigger`
+The indexes of your hotwords are base 1 and are deturmined by the order in which the hotwords are passed into `Sonus.init`
+
+**Exceptions**
+- `NOT_STARTED` - will be thrown if you have not started sonus when this is called.
+- `INVALID_INDEX` - will be thrown if you pass an invalid index.
+
+**Example:**
+``` javascript
+Sonus.trigger(sonus, 1)
+```
+sonus will be triggered with a hotword index of `1`
+
+You can also optionally specify an index of `0` and an arbitrary hotword that will be returned in the `hotword` event
+**Example:**
+``` javascript
+sonus.trigger(sonus, 0, 'some hotword')
+```
+sonus will be triggered with a hotword index of `1` and a hotword of `some hotword`
+
+Passing a hotword with a valid index will override the hotword name and trigger that hotword
+**Example:**
+``` javascript
+sonus.trigger(sonus, 1, 'override')
+```
+## Events
+hotword
+partial-result
+final-result
+error
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/examples/trigger-example.js b/examples/trigger-example.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..077f78c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/trigger-example.js
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+'use strict'
+
+const ROOT_DIR = __dirname + '/../'
+const Sonus = require(ROOT_DIR + 'index.js')
+const speech = require('@google-cloud/speech')({
+  projectId: 'streaming-speech-sample',
+  keyFilename: ROOT_DIR + 'keyfile.json'
+})
+
+const hotwords = [{ file: ROOT_DIR + 'resources/sonus.pmdl', hotword: 'sonus' }]
+const language = "en-US"
+const sonus = Sonus.init({ hotwords, language }, speech)
+
+try{
+  Sonus.trigger(sonus, 1)
+} catch (e) {
+  console.log('Triggering Sonus before starting it will throw the following exception:', e)
+}
+
+Sonus.start(sonus)
+
+sonus.on('hotword', (index, keyword) => console.log("!" + keyword))
+
+sonus.on('partial-result', result => console.log("Partial", result))
+
+sonus.on('error', (error) => console.log(error))
+
+sonus.on('final-result', result => {
+  console.log("Final", result)
+  if (result.includes("stop")) {
+    Sonus.stop()
+  }
+})
+
+try{
+  Sonus.trigger(sonus, 2)
+} catch (e) {
+  console.log('Triggering Sonus with an invalid index will throw the following error:', e)
+}
+
+//Will use index 0 with a hotword of "triggered" and start streaming immedietly
+Sonus.trigger(sonus, 0, "some hotword")
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/index.js b/index.js
index 9548a5b..9283f85 100644
--- a/index.js
+++ b/index.js
@@ -4,6 +4,11 @@ const record = require('node-record-lpcm16')
 const stream = require('stream')
 const {Detector, Models} = require('snowboy')
 
+const ERROR = {
+  NOT_STARTED : "NOT_STARTED",
+  INVALID_INDEX : "INVALID_INDEX"
+}
+
 const CloudSpeechRecognizer = {}
 CloudSpeechRecognizer.init = recognizer => {
   const csr = new stream.Writable()
@@ -56,6 +61,7 @@ Sonus.init = (options, recognizer) => {
     sonus = new stream.Writable(),
     csr = CloudSpeechRecognizer.init(recognizer)
   sonus.mic = {}
+  sonus.started = false
 
   // If we don't have any hotwords passed in, add the default global model
   opts.hotwords = opts.hotwords || [1]
@@ -80,8 +86,7 @@ Sonus.init = (options, recognizer) => {
 
   // When a hotword is detected pipe the audio stream to speech detection
   detector.on('hotword', (index, hotword) => {
-    sonus.emit('hotword', index, hotword)
-    CloudSpeechRecognizer.startStreaming(opts, sonus.mic, csr)
+    sonus.trigger(index, hotword)
   })
 
   csr.on('error', error => sonus.emit('error', { streamingError: error }))
@@ -97,6 +102,21 @@ Sonus.init = (options, recognizer) => {
       }
     }
   })
+
+  sonus.trigger = (index, hotword) => {
+    if(sonus.started){
+      try{
+        let triggerHotword = (index == 0)? hotword : models.lookup(index)
+        sonus.emit('hotword', index, triggerHotword)
+        CloudSpeechRecognizer.startStreaming(opts, sonus.mic, csr)
+      } catch (e) {
+        throw ERROR.INVALID_INDEX
+      }
+    } else {
+      throw ERROR.NOT_STARTED
+    }
+  }
+
   return sonus
 }
 
@@ -107,8 +127,11 @@ Sonus.start = sonus => {
   })
 
   sonus.mic.pipe(sonus.detector)
+  sonus.started = true
 }
 
+Sonus.trigger = (sonus, index, hotword) => sonus.trigger(index, hotword)
+
 Sonus.pause = sonus => sonus.mic.pause()
 
 Sonus.resume = sonus => sonus.mic.resume()
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index e3ab6a7..c6ccfd7 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "sonus",
-  "version": "0.1.2",
+  "version": "0.1.3",
   "description": "Open source cross platform decentralized always-on speech recognition framework",
   "main": "index.js",
   "scripts": {