Usage

uv run easyspeak

uv manages the environment for you. If you installed into a plain virtual environment instead, activate it each time you open a new terminal and run the script directly:

source ~/easyspeak-venv/bin/activate
easyspeak

Say "Hey Jarvis" followed by a command. After a command that gives no spoken reply (such as volume changes), EasySpeak keeps listening for a few seconds so you can chain commands — say "louder", "louder", "louder" without repeating the wake word each time.

Command-line options

Flag	Default	Effect
-v, --verbose		Show debug output
-q, --quiet		Show only warnings and errors
--configure [ITEM ...]	extension service	Set up the listed integrations and exit
--preview ITEM		Print the file content that would be configured and exit

For --configure/--preview, each ITEM is one of extension, service, autostart, or desktop. Verbosity can also be set with the EASYSPEAK_LOG_LEVEL environment variable (e.g. DEBUG, INFO, WARNING), but the command-line flags take precedence.

See core.cli and core.log for the underlying argument parsing and logging setup.

Configuration

Behavior is tuned through EASYSPEAK_* environment variables, grouped below by the module that reads each (linked to its API reference).

core.config

Variable	Default	Effect
EASYSPEAK_HOTKEY	ctrl+shift	Keys held to dictate without the wake word
EASYSPEAK_OFFLINE	strict	Stay offline; relaxed downloads models
EASYSPEAK_PIPER_BIN	piper	Piper TTS binary
EASYSPEAK_REQUIRE_WAKE_WORD	unset	Modes wait for the wake word each command
EASYSPEAK_PIPER_MODEL	bundled Amy voice	Piper voice .onnx for speech output
EASYSPEAK_SOUNDS_DIR	/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo	Directory of the wake chime and error bell
EASYSPEAK_WHISPER_COMPUTE_TYPE	int8	CTranslate2 compute type
EASYSPEAK_WHISPER_CPU_THREADS	0	CPU threads for transcription (0 = auto)
EASYSPEAK_WHISPER_MODEL	base.en	faster-whisper model for transcription
EASYSPEAK_SILENCE_THRESHOLD	measured at startup	Amplitude below which audio counts as quiet

EASYSPEAK_SILENCE_THRESHOLD is normally left alone. On startup EasySpeak listens to the room for a second and sets the threshold above whatever it measures — a fixed value assumes a quiet room, and where the ambient level sits above it (a desk fan, a desktop machine) silence is never detected, so every recording runs to its full time cap and every command feels slow. The measured floor is printed at startup:

Room noise floor 412; silence threshold 1030

Set the variable to skip the measurement, e.g. if you happen to be talking during the first second after launch.

EASYSPEAK_HOTKEY takes the ctrl/shift/alt/super aliases or raw evdev key names joined with + (e.g. ctrl+space); set it to empty, off, or none to turn it off, and an unrecognized key disables it too. See Packaging for the device access it needs.

core.log

Variable	Default	Effect
EASYSPEAK_LOG_LEVEL	INFO	Logging level when no -v/-q flag is given

plugins.dictation

Variable	Default	Effect
EASYSPEAK_ATSPI_PYTHON	probed	Interpreter running the dictation AT-SPI helper
EASYSPEAK_PASTE_KEYS	per app	Keystroke that pastes dictated text

Dictation types by putting the text on the clipboard and sending a paste keystroke — every toolkit implements paste, whereas accessibility-level insertion is widely stubbed out. EASYSPEAK_PASTE_KEYS overrides the chord, e.g. shift+insert; by default it is Ctrl+V, or Ctrl+Shift+V when a terminal has focus. It accepts ctrl, shift, alt, super, insert and v joined with +.

EASYSPEAK_ATSPI_PYTHON is normally left alone. The AT-SPI helper needs PyGObject and the AT-SPI typelib, which the application's own virtual environment usually lacks, so candidate interpreters are probed with the helper's real import chain and the first that works is kept. Set the variable to point straight at one (the Nix flake does).