A computing device comprising: a processing unit; memory (820, 825, 920, 922, 924); and one or more microphones (150, 934); the computing device 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 (240, 260) to perform a task of a third-party application, and wherein the task is identified using a data structure that defines tasks of third-party applications (110, 230, 914) invokable by spoken command; determining whether the task of the third-party application (110, 230, 914) is capable of being headlessly executed; causing the third-party application (110, 230, 914) to execute as a background process to headlessly execute the task when it is determined that the task of the third-party application is capable of being headlessly executed; F 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; memory (820, 825, 920, 922, 924); and one or more microphones (150, 934); the computing device configured with a speech-controlled digital personal assistant, the operations comprising: memory (820, 825, 920, 922, 924); and one or more microphones (150, 934); the computing device 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 (240, 260) to perform a task of a third-party application, and wherein the task is identified using a data structure that defines tasks of third-party applications (110, 230, 914) invokable by spoken command; determining whether the task of the third-party application (110, 230, 914) is capable of being headlessly executed; causing the third-party application (110, 230, 914) to execute as a background process to headlessly execute the task when it is determined that the task of the performing speech recognition using the speech input to determine a spoken command, wherein the spoken command comprises a request (240, 260) to perform a task of a third-party application, and wherein the task is identified using a data structure that defines tasks of third-party applications (110, 230, 914) invokable by spoken command; determining whether the task of the third-party application (110, 230, 914) is capable of being headlessly executed; causing the third-party application (110, 230, 914) to execute as a background process to headlessly execute the task when it is determined that the task of the third-party application is capable of being headlessly executed; F 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.