Overview

voic.sh — Voice typing for Wayland Linux

crates.io docs

Offline, privacy-first voice typing. Speak into your mic, text appears in your focused app. Or pipe a WAV file and get text on stdout.

Build: Rust, C compiler, cmake, pkg-config, libclang, ALSA headers — sudo apt install build-essential cmake pkg-config libclang-dev libasound2-dev

Run (mic mode): sudo apt install wl-clipboard wtype ydotool — GNOME 45+ / KDE 6.1+ work without wtype/ydotool; pipe mode has no runtime deps

Status: Early MVP (v0.0.1)

Free-time side project. Primary target: Ubuntu + GNOME + Wayland — that’s what I develop and test on. Other distros, desktops, and compositors are welcome, but I can’t reproduce issues outside this setup. Maintenance time is limited.

If something doesn’t work, open an issue so we can improve it together. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to make the most of limited maintenance bandwidth.

Quick start 

cargo install voicsh

# First run — detects your desktop and picks the best model:
voicsh init

# Mic mode:
voicsh                          # continuous mic → text into focused app
voicsh --once                   # single utterance → exit

# Pipe mode (no mic/runtime deps needed):
cat file.wav | voicsh

voicsh help                     # all commands and options

How it works 

Mic/WAV → VAD → Chunker → Whisper → Post-processor → Text injection
                                                        ↓
                                                portal / wtype / ydotool
  1. Audio captured via cpal (mic) or hound (WAV file)
  2. Voice activity detection splits speech into chunks
  3. whisper-rs transcribes each chunk locally
  4. Text injected via xdg-desktop-portal (GNOME/KDE), wtype, or ydotool

Pipe mode (cat file.wav | voicsh) skips injection and writes to stdout.

Install 

# Ubuntu/Debian:
sudo apt install build-essential cmake pkg-config libclang-dev libasound2-dev
cargo install voicsh

Other distros, GPU acceleration, and pipe-only builds: see INSTALL.md .

Text injection

voicsh injects transcribed text into your focused app. voicsh init auto-detects the best backend:

Desktop Backend Notes
GNOME 45+ Portal (RemoteDesktop) No extra tools needed
KDE 6.1+ Portal or wtype
Sway / Hyprland wtype sudo apt install wtype
Fallback ydotool Needs ydotoold daemon

Override at runtime: voicsh --injection-backend wtype Override via env: VOICSH_BACKEND=portal voicsh Override in config: [injection] section — run voicsh config dump to see all options.

wl-clipboard (wl-copy) is required for clipboard-based injection.

Note: wtype/ydotool inject via clipboard paste — this overwrites your clipboard. Portal types directly without touching the clipboard.

Voice commands

Voice commands trigger only when spoken as standalone utterances — pause, say the command, pause. Text that merely contains a command word passes through unchanged:

[pause] "period" [pause]          → .
[pause] "new line" [pause]        → (line break)
"the period of history"           → "the period of history"
"press enter to continue"        → "press enter to continue"
[pause] "all caps" [pause] "wow" → "WOW"

Built-in commands are available for English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Discover all commands for a language:

voicsh config list --language=en     # English voice commands
voicsh config list --language=ko     # Korean voice commands
voicsh config list --language=en,de  # multiple languages

Add custom commands in [voice_commands.commands] in config — they take precedence over built-ins. To disable voice commands entirely: voice_commands.enabled = false.

Configuration 

voicsh config dump              # commented template with all options and defaults
voicsh config list              # current active configuration
voicsh config list stt          # just the [stt] section
voicsh config get stt.model     # single value
voicsh config set stt.model small.en

Config file: ~/.config/voicsh/config.toml. Environment overrides: VOICSH_MODEL, VOICSH_LANGUAGE, VOICSH_BACKEND.

Shell integration

GNOME extension — panel indicator with recording state, model info, and Super+Alt+V toggle:

voicsh install-gnome-extension

Shell completions: voicsh completions bash|zsh|fish — run voicsh completions --help for install paths.

License

MIT

Acknowledgments