Talk-to-Pi

Local voice input for the Pi coding agent, powered by NVIDIA NeMo-Speech.cpp and Nemotron 3.5 ASR Streaming.

Talk-to-Pi records your microphone locally, shows the live transcript, and places the final text in Pi's normal prompt editor. Nothing is submitted automatically.

Features

• Local streaming speech-to-text
• Multilingual Nemotron 3.5 ASR with automatic language detection
• Live transcript in a focused Pi overlay
• Dictation while the Pi agent is working
• Existing editor text is preserved when dictation is inserted
• Non-blocking runtime and model downloads with visible progress
• Automatic native-runtime recovery after recording failures
• Configurable shortcut, language, and model prewarming
• CPU runtimes for Linux, macOS, and Windows
• No cloud speech service, telemetry, audio persistence, or automatic prompt submission

Requirements

• Node.js >=24.0.0
• Pi coding agent
• Approximately 742 MB for the speech model
• A supported CPU platform:
  • Linux x64 with AVX2/FMA/F16C/BMI2, or Linux ARM64
  • macOS 13 or later on Intel with AVX2, or Apple Silicon
  • Windows 10/11 x64 with AVX2

Pi on Windows runs in Git Bash. Linux release binaries target Ubuntu 24.04 or a distribution with a compatible glibc and C++ runtime.

Installation

Install the package through Pi:

pi install npm:talk-to-pi

Restart Pi or run /reload after installation.

Usage

Press Alt+R or run:

/talk

The recording flow is:

1. Speak while the live transcript is displayed.
2. Press Enter to stop and finalize.
3. Edit the resulting text in Pi's regular editor.
4. Submit it normally when ready.

Press Esc to discard a recording.

On first use, Talk-to-Pi asks before downloading the pinned NVIDIA model. The large model download runs in the background, displays progress below Pi's editor, and does not prevent normal work; start /talk again after the ready notification. If the model is already available, any remaining runtime provisioning continues in the same /talk invocation and recording starts automatically.

Language override

Use automatic detection by default, or select a language for one recording:

/talk --lang de-DE
/talk --lang en-US
/talk --lang auto

Configuration

Run /talk-config inside Pi to edit the persistent configuration. It is stored in the Talk-to-Pi config directory under your user profile.

{
  "shortcut": "alt+r",
  "language": "auto",
  "prewarm": false
}

• shortcut: recording shortcut; set to null to disable it
• language: auto, system, or a supported locale such as de-DE
• prewarm: load the native runtime at Pi startup for lower first-recording latency

Saving through /talk-config validates the file and reloads the extension automatically.

Commands

Command	Description
/talk	Start voice input
/talk --lang <locale>	Start with a one-off language
/talk-config	Edit persistent settings
/talk-doctor	Show asset and runtime diagnostics

Updating

Update Talk-to-Pi through Pi:

pi update npm:talk-to-pi

Restart Pi or run /reload afterward.

Privacy

Microphone audio is handled by the local native runtime and is not uploaded by Talk-to-Pi. Transcripts are not logged or stored separately. Once you submit text from Pi's editor, it follows Pi's configured model-provider behavior.

Development

Clone the repository with its pinned native dependencies:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Danmoreng/talk-to-pi.git
cd talk-to-pi
npm ci
npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run build
npm run native:build
npm run native:test
npm run local:pi

Optional CUDA build

On a supported NVIDIA Linux system:

cmake -S native -B native/build-cuda -G Ninja \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -DTALK_TO_PI_ENABLE_CUDA=ON
cmake --build native/build-cuda --parallel

Use the resulting runtime with:

export TALK_TO_PI_RUNTIME_PATH="$PWD/native/build-cuda/talk-to-pi-runtime"

Architecture and protocol details are available in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md and docs/PROTOCOL.md.

License

Talk-to-Pi is MIT licensed. NVIDIA NeMo-Speech.cpp, the Nemotron model, and other dependencies retain their respective licenses. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md and docs/LICENSING.md.