A computing device (130, 900) comprising: a processing unit (810, 815, 910); memory (820, 825, 920); and one or more microphones (150, 934); the computing device (130, 900) configured with a speech-controlled digital personal assistant, the operations comprising: receiving speech input generated by a user via the one or more microphones (150, 934); performing speech recognition using the speech input to determine a spoken command, wherein the spoken command comprises a request to perform a task that is a pre-determined function of a third-party application (110, 230), and wherein the task is identified using a data structure that defines functions supported by available third-party applications (110, 230) using voice input; determining whether the task of the third-party application (110, 230) is capable of being headlessly executed; causing the third-party application (110, 230) to execute the task headlessly as a background process without a user interface of the third-party voice-enabled application (110, 230) appearing on a display of the computing device (130, 900), when it is determined that the task of the third-party application (110, 230) is capable of being headlessly executed; receiving a response from the third-party application (110, 230) indicating a state associated with the task; and providing, by a user interface of the speech-controlled digital personal assistant, a response to the user based on the received state associated with the task so that the response comes from within a context of the user interface of the speech-controlled digital personal assistant without surfacing the user interface of the third-party application (110, 230); characterized in that the operations further comprise initiating a warm-up sequence of the third-party application (110, 230) while performing speech recognition and before completion of determining the spoken command, wherein the warm-up sequence includes allocating a portion of the memory (820, 825, 920), pre-fetching instructions, establishing a communication session, retrieving information from a database, starting a new execution thread, or raising an interrupt. a processing unit (810, 815, 910); memory (820, 825, 920); and one or more microphones (150, 934); the computing device (130, 900) configured with a speech-controlled digital personal assistant, the operations comprising: receiving speech input generated by a user via the one or more microphones (150, 934); performing speech recognition using the speech input to determine a spoken command, wherein the spoken command comprises a request to perform a task that is a pre-determined function of a third-party application (110, 230), and wherein the task is identified using a data structure that defines functions supported by available third-party applications (110, 230) using voice input; determining whether the task of the third-party application (110, 230) is capable of being headlessly executed; causing the third-party application (110, 230) to execute the task headlessly as a background process without a user interface of the third-party voice-enabled application (110, 230) appearing on a display of the computing device (130, 900), when it is determined that the task of the third-party application (110, 230) is capable of being headlessly executed; receiving a response from the third-party application (110, 230) indicating a state associated with the task; and providing, by a user interface of the speech-controlled digital personal assistant, a response to the user based on the received state associated with the task so that the response comes from within a context of the user interface of the speech-controlled digital personal assistant without surfacing the user interface of the third-party application (110, 230); receiving speech input generated by a user via the one or more microphones (150, 934); performing speech recognition using the speech input to determine a spoken command, wherein the spoken command comprises a request to perform a task that is a pre-determined function of a third-party application (110, 230), and wherein the task is identified using a data structure that defines functions supported by available third-party applications (110, 230) using voice input; determining whether the task of the third-party application (110, 230) is capable of being headlessly executed; causing the third-party application (110, 230) to execute the task headlessly as a background process without a user interface of the third-party voice-enabled application (110, 230) appearing on a display of the computing device (130, 900), when it is determined that the task of the third-party application (110, 230) is capable of being headlessly executed; receiving a response from the third-party application (110, 230) indicating a state associated with the task; and providing, by a user interface of the speech-controlled digital personal assistant, a response to the user based on the received state associated with the task so that the response comes from within a context of the user interface of the speech-controlled digital personal assistant without surfacing the user interface of the third-party application (110, 230); characterized in that the operations further comprise initiating a warm-up sequence of the third-party application (110, 230) while performing speech recognition and before completion of determining the spoken command, wherein the warm-up sequence includes allocating a portion of the memory (820, 825, 920), pre-fetching instructions, establishing a communication session, retrieving information from a database, starting a new execution thread, or raising an interrupt.