Skip to content

mrelmida/scrybe

BranchesTags

Repository files navigation

Scrybe

On-device voice dictation for Linux — speak anywhere, paste anywhere.

Press a global hotkey, an animated overlay appears with a live voice visualizer, you talk, and your words are pasted straight into whatever app you're using. All speech recognition runs locally — nothing leaves your machine.

Install

curl -fsSL https://mrelmida.dev/scrybe/install.sh | bash

The installer detects your GPU and only pulls what your hardware needs — it skips the Intel/OpenVINO stack on NVIDIA or AMD machines, for example. It builds Scrybe and sets it up as a desktop app with a global hotkey and login autostart. Then launch Scrybe from your app menu (it lives in the system tray) and press Meta+Alt+D to dictate.

Supported distributions: Fedora, Arch, Debian/Ubuntu, openSUSE (KDE Plasma 6 / Wayland). Works on Intel, NVIDIA, AMD, or CPU-only machines.

Features

  • 🎙️ Push-to-talk dictation with a global hotkey (default Meta+Alt+D).
  • 🏝️ Animated overlay — a translucent "island" with a live, audio-reactive voice visualizer, anchored to the top or bottom of the screen.
  • 📝 Live transcription as you speak (optional).
  • ⌨️ Enter to send · Esc to cancel.
  • 📋 Clipboard paste into the focused app — no simulated keystrokes; your clipboard is restored afterward.
  • 🧠 Optional LLM formatting (local, via Ollama) — clean-up, Markdown structuring, summarizing/shortening, or your own custom style presets.
  • ⚙️ Settings window to pick the backend, model, language, and formatting style, and to create custom presets.
  • 🔌 Runs on any hardware — Intel, NVIDIA, AMD/Vulkan GPUs, or CPU. The installer only builds the backend your machine needs, and you can add others later from Settings ▸ Hardware.
  • ⬆️ Automatic updates — checks GitHub on launch and updates in place.
  • 💤 Lightweight — the model loads on demand and unloads when idle.
  • 🐧 Native C++/Qt 6 (QML) for KDE Plasma 6 / Wayland.

Hardware support

Scrybe has pluggable speech-to-text backends and picks the best one for your machine automatically (stt/backend=auto):

Backend Best for Engine Installed by default on
openvino Intel iGPU / Arc / NPU + CPU OpenVINO GenAI Intel GPUs
faster-whisper NVIDIA (CUDA) + CPU CTranslate2 NVIDIA / CPU-only
whispercpp Vulkan / AMD / any GPU + CPU whisper.cpp on request

auto resolves to faster-whisper on NVIDIA, OpenVINO on Intel, and faster-whisper on CPU elsewhere. The OpenVINO backend is compiled in only when an Intel GPU is present (or forced with SCRYBE_WITH_OPENVINO=1), so the app builds and runs on any machine. Any backend can be forced in the config, and missing backends can be installed on demand from Settings ▸ Hardware (or scripts/install-backend.sh openvino|faster-whisper|whispercpp).

Usage

  1. Launch Scrybe (app menu) — it runs in the tray and autostarts on login.
  2. Press Meta+Alt+D. The island appears and starts listening.
  3. Speak. With live preview on, the text fills in as you talk.
  4. Press Enter to finalize and paste, or Esc to cancel.

Open Settings from the tray (or scrybe --settings) to choose the backend, model, language, and formatting style, and to manage custom presets. Rebind the hotkey in System Settings → Shortcuts → Scrybe.

Configuration

Settings live in ~/.config/scrybe/scrybe.conf and most are exposed in the tray.

Key Values Default Meaning
stt/backend auto·openvino·faster-whisper·whispercpp auto recognition engine
stt/model tiny·base·small·medium·turbo·large-v3·distil small model size
stt/device AUTO:GPU,CPU·GPU·CPU·NPU·cuda·cpu AUTO:GPU,CPU compute device
stt/language auto or a code (en, de, tr, …) auto dictation language
ui/preview true·false true live transcription preview
island/position top·bottom top overlay anchor
paste/restoreClipboard true·false true restore clipboard after paste
paste/restoreDelayMs ms 1000 grace period before restoring the clipboard
paste/shortcut ctrl+v·ctrl+shift+v ctrl+v paste shortcut (ctrl+shift+v for terminals)
llm/model Ollama model qwen2.5:1.5b cleanup model
whispercpp/endpoint URL http://127.0.0.1:8080 whisper-server endpoint
update/versionUrl URL GitHub VERSION where to check for updates
update/autoCheck true·false true check for updates on launch 
kwriteconfig6 --file ~/.config/scrybe/scrybe.conf --group stt --key model turbo

Models

Speech models download on first use (pick one in the tray → Speech model), or:

scripts/download-model.sh turbo   # tiny|base|small|medium|turbo|large-v3|distil
Key Model Notes
tiny whisper-tiny fastest, least accurate
base whisper-base fast
small whisper-small balanced (default)
medium whisper-medium accurate
turbo whisper-large-v3-turbo best speed/accuracy
large-v3 whisper-large-v3 most accurate, slower
distil distil-whisper-large-v3 fast, English-focused

Backends

faster-whisper (NVIDIA / CPU)

kwriteconfig6 --file ~/.config/scrybe/scrybe.conf --group stt --key backend faster-whisper
kwriteconfig6 --file ~/.config/scrybe/scrybe.conf --group stt --key device cuda   # or cpu

whisper.cpp (Vulkan / any GPU)

Build the server with your backend, then point Scrybe at it:

git clone https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp && cd whisper.cpp
cmake -B build -DGGML_VULKAN=ON        # or -DGGML_CUDA=ON
cmake --build build -j --target whisper-server
./build/bin/whisper-server -m models/ggml-large-v3-turbo.bin --port 8080
kwriteconfig6 --file ~/.config/scrybe/scrybe.conf --group stt --key backend whispercpp

LLM formatting (optional)

Enable in Settings (or the tray). Before pasting, the transcript is processed by a local Ollama model. Pick a style:

  • Clean formatting — fix punctuation, casing, and filler words.
  • Markdown — structure into headings, lists, bold, and code blocks.
  • Summarize & shorten — condense and remove duplication.
  • Custom presets — write your own instruction (e.g. "Rewrite as a formal email."); saved presets appear in the style dropdown.

It never answers questions or changes meaning, and falls back to the raw text if Ollama isn't running. Pull a model with ollama pull qwen2.5:1.5b.

Updates

Scrybe checks GitHub for a newer release a few seconds after launch (it reads a plain VERSION file) and shows a tray notification when one is available. Update any time from Settings ▸ Updates (or the tray → Check for updates…) — it pulls the latest source and rebuilds in a terminal. To update manually:

curl -fsSL https://mrelmida.dev/scrybe/install.sh | bash

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/mrelmida/scrybe && cd scrybe
./build-and-setup.sh

Or manually (dependencies already installed):

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build

Common commands:

scrybe --help                        # all options
scrybe --version
scrybe --settings                    # open the settings window
scrybe --transcribe-file file.wav    # self-test the recognizer (no mic)
make build | run | install | clean   # dev convenience targets

Uninstall

scripts/uninstall.sh            # remove the app (keeps your models + config)
scripts/uninstall.sh --purge    # also remove models, config, and OpenVINO

Troubleshooting

  • Paste doesn't work — ensure ydotoold is running and you're in the input group (the installer configures this; log out/in once after the first install). For terminals, set paste/shortcut to ctrl+shift+v.
  • Hotkey does nothing — check System Settings → Shortcuts → Scrybe.
  • First dictation shows "Loading speech model…" — normal; the model loads on demand and is cached afterward.

Architecture

scrybe (C++/Qt6 daemon)
├── core/Controller     state machine (Idle→Listening→Transcribing→Beautifying→Pasting)
├── audio/AudioCapture  microphone capture + level metering
├── stt/                pluggable backends (OpenVINO · faster-whisper · whisper.cpp)
├── llm/LlmBeautifier   Ollama client
├── paste/Paster        clipboard + Ctrl+V injection
├── update/Updater      GitHub version check + in-place update
└── qml/                overlay + settings window (sidebar, hardware, updates)

Global hotkeys use KDE's KGlobalAccel; the overlay is a Wayland layer-shell surface that returns focus to your app for pasting.

Tests

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DBUILD_TESTING=ON && cmake --build build
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure     # C++ unit tests + sidecar protocol

CI (GitHub Actions) runs the unit tests on Ubuntu, the sidecar protocol test, and a full application build on Fedora.

Roadmap

  • Settings UI (in place of editing the config file)
  • Hardware-aware install + on-demand backend management in the UI
  • Automatic updates
  • Configurable paste shortcut (terminal support via paste/shortcut)
  • Voice-activity detection
  • Per-app paste shortcut overrides

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

About

on-device voice dictation for linux — speak anywhere, paste anywhere

Resources

Readme

License

MIT license
Activity

Stars

0 stars

Watchers

0 watching

Forks

0 forks
Report repository

Releases

No releases published

Packages

 
 
 

Contributors

Languages