tacet v0.1.0 — alpha

Push-to-talk dictation for macOS. Hold Ctrl+Alt+Space, speak, release — the transcript is pasted at the cursor, including into a terminal reached over SSH or mosh.

Transcription is local (whisper.cpp, model held resident). Audio never leaves your hardware: no cloud ASR, no account.

This is an alpha. It works, and it has been used daily — but by one person, on two Macs, with one microphone.

Install

git clone https://github.com/DRYCodeWorks/tacet && cd tacet
./install-server.sh     # transcription side
./install-client.sh     # hotkey, mic, paste

On one Mac, run both. On two, run install-server.sh on the machine holding the model and install-client.sh on the one you type at.

Tacet.zip below is the same app bundle the installers build, prebuilt and signed with Developer ID (Team Q6G8B5282N), notarized by Apple and stapled — so it launches without a Gatekeeper prompt. The installers still handle launchd, the model download, and config rendering, so the clone is the supported path; the zip is for inspecting or hand-placing the bundle.

Two permissions no installer can grant for you — Microphone and Accessibility — have to be approved in System Settings. The README covers what to click and how to tell which one is missing.

Known rough edges

• Silence threshold is calibrated against synthetic audio, not a real microphone. A different mic in a different room may need a different number. Every request logs its measured RMS so you can calibrate from evidence.
• First-word clipping. ~670 ms of device-open latency will swallow a fast first word if you speak the instant you press the key. Pre-warming would fix it at the cost of holding the mic open continuously — a privacy trade that should be deliberate, so it is not built.
• End-to-end latency is not rigorously measured. If it feels consistently above ~2 s, the lever is a faster model, not this pipeline.

License

MIT.