voice | pipesDownload
Docs

developer docs.

Install Voice Pipes from a terminal and drive it with vp, its command-line tool: run voice pipelines, speak, listen, transcribe, and edit the config, from a shell or an agent.

Voice Pipes is a Mac menu bar app that runs tracks: hotkey-triggered pipelines of blocks that transcribe, fix your words, ask a model, branch on what the text is, paste, speak or call your own endpoint. These docs cover the developer side: installing from a terminal, vp, the command-line tool, the config file, steering what’s read aloud, and the skill that teaches coding agents to use it. They match Voice Pipes 1.8.1.

curl -fsSL https://github.com/brancusi/voice-tools-releases/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash

That one line installs the app, links vp and installs the agent skill. Then:

vp

Pages

Page What’s in it
Install Requirements, the one-line installer and its options, permissions you grant yourself, linking vp to an app you already have, updates and uninstalling
CLI reference Every vp command with its options and output, TOON and JSON, errors and exit codes, and how vp talks to the app
Config file config.toml and vocabulary.toml: tracks, hotkeys, every block including Branch, the settings, choosing a model, checking, backups and secrets
Reading aloud The read-along card, jumping between sentences, live speed, the HUD’s keys and when it takes them, from the app, vp or the config
Agents The skill for Claude Code, Codex and others, what agents read aloud to you, building tracks from plain language, the optional session hook, and patterns

What vp needs

  • The app. vp is the Voice Pipes app’s own binary, linked onto your PATH, so it needs the app installed and is always the same version. Commands that read or edit files work while the app is closed; the rest start it in the background.
  • A Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 14 or later.
  • Your permission for the microphone and Accessibility, granted once in the app’s first-run window. macOS doesn’t let a script grant them.
  • Keys only for cloud blocks. Transcription with Parakeet, Fix words and the Pocket TTS and Supertonic voices run on your Mac with no account, once their models have downloaded. OpenRouter and TypeSafe (Jev) keys unlock the cloud blocks, including Jev’s Route and Branch picks: what needs a key.

New here as a user rather than a developer? The home page shows what tracks do, and Setup covers the keys.