dottie-talk

Local voice: STT + koko TTS (:1314) + HTTP façade (:1320).

Standalone. No gateway. No Dottie.app.

npm install
npm start

Bins ship in bin/ (macOS). Models download on first boot (~/.cache/parakeet.cpp, ~/.cache/dottie-talk or ~/.dottie).

npx speak "hello" -o hello.wav
speak "hello" -o hello.wav   # after dottie-talk bar on (~/.local/bin/speak)
npx transcribe hello.wav

Node ≥22. Override STT with DOTTIE_STT=voxtype or DOTTIE_STT=parakeet.

Linux: if voxtype is already on PATH, talk uses it. If not, first start downloads the x86_64 AVX2 binary into ~/.cache/dottie-talk/bin and base.en (no sudo, no pacman). npm start skips the Darwin bin/koko and downloads the linux-bins ELF the same way. Streaming/multipart STT needs parakeet — buffered JSON /v1/audio/transcriptions works on both.

MCP

npm run mcp (stdio). Audio stays on disk or goes to the speakers, so agent context never fills with base64.

Streaming needs a player that reads stdin: pw-cat, pacat, aplay, or ffplay. The first one on PATH wins (pw-cat runs with --raw).

Add to Claude Code:

claude mcp add dottie-talk -s user -- node ~/Projects/dottie-talk/mcp.js

Related MCP server: io.github.chicogong/ffvoice

Talk-back (Claude Code)

Read Claude's replies aloud through koko. talk-back.js runs as two Claude Code hooks, and skills/ has the /talk and /talk-toggle skills.

Stop it: type anything (the next prompt cuts playback off), /talk stop, or /talk off. On Linux with dottie-talk keys on, Escape stops it too.

What is read: only the final reply. Never thinking, tool calls, or notes written between tool calls. Code blocks, tables, URLs, and markdown marks are dropped.

State: ~/.config/dottie-talk/talk-back/. The saved last reply is per session (last-<session>.txt), so two windows never read each other's reply. The on/off mode is global.

Setup

1. Start dottie-talk (npm start), so koko answers on :1314

2. Link the skills:

   ln -s ~/Projects/dottie-talk/skills/talk ~/.claude/skills/talk
   ln -s ~/Projects/dottie-talk/skills/talk-toggle ~/.claude/skills/talk-toggle

3. Add the hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json:

   {
     "hooks": {
       "Stop": [{ "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "node ~/Projects/dottie-talk/talk-back.js hook", "timeout": 5 }] }],
       "UserPromptSubmit": [{ "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "node ~/Projects/dottie-talk/talk-back.js interrupt", "timeout": 5 }] }]
     }
   }

4. Restart Claude Code, then /talk on

The Stop hook saves every reply and speaks it only when the mode is on. It returns at once; playback runs in a detached child. The interrupt hook prints nothing, because UserPromptSubmit output goes into the model's context.

Keys (Linux)

Talk-keys analog. Off by default. Enable, then keep npm start running so binds arm:

dottie-talk keys on
npm start

Config: ~/.config/dottie-talk/config.json

{
  "keys": {
    "enabled": false,
    "speak": "ALT + S",
    "stop": "ESCAPE",
    "dictate": "ALT + D",
    "voice": ""
  }
}

DOTTIE_TALK_KEYS=on / off overrides enabled. Hotkeys no-op when the HTTP server is down. macOS: use talk-keys.

Bar (Omarchy)

Menubar icon only while npm start is running. Click: keys toggle, speak selection, stop, quit. Middle-click quits.

dottie-talk bar on
dottie-talk start

start on Linux also installs the plugin (sd.dottie-talk) next to Dottie if the bar does not already have it.

Related

• talk-keys — macOS hotkeys for speak / dictate

• dottie-desktop — desktop app

• local-ai-cli — local AI CLI