f9-talk

Hold-to-talk dictation for Linux. Press F9, speak, release — the transcript types itself into whatever app you're focused on. Works system-wide, in any text field. Powered by Deepgram Nova-3 streaming.

A single statically-linked Rust binary. On Wayland the indicator is a native wlr-layer-shell voice wave; X11 is supported too.

Install

The release ships a single self-contained AppImage — the binary, its libraries, and the wl-clipboard / wtype typing tools, all in one file. Five steps:

# 1. Download the latest self-contained AppImage into ~/Applications:
mkdir -p ~/Applications && cd ~/Applications
curl -fL -o f9-talk.AppImage "$(curl -fsSL \
  https://api.github.com/repos/moamen1358/f9-talk/releases/latest \
  | grep browser_download_url | grep '\.AppImage' | cut -d'"' -f4)"
chmod +x f9-talk.AppImage

# 2. One-time setup — desktop integration, then uinput access (needs sudo):
./f9-talk.AppImage install --user         # apps menu, autostart, icon, secrets file
sudo ./f9-talk.AppImage install --system  # udev rule + adds you to the `input` group

# 3. Log out and back in once   ← so the `input`-group membership applies

# 4. Put your Deepgram API key in the .env file (free tier:
#    https://console.deepgram.com/signup). This overwrites the placeholder
#    that step 2 created at ~/.config/F9_talk/secrets.env:
echo 'DEEPGRAM_API_KEY=your_key_here' > ~/.config/F9_talk/secrets.env

# 5. Run it — or just log back in, it autostarts:
./f9-talk.AppImage

Then hold F9, speak, release — the transcript types at your cursor.

The only host requirement is libfuse2 (every AppImage needs it) — sudo apt install libfuse2 if it's missing. f9-talk uninstall [--user|--system] reverses step 2; your API key is always kept.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/moamen1358/f9-talk.git
cd f9-talk
# One-time: Rust toolchain + Linux build deps (see docs/architecture.md).
./run.sh --build

Use

Hold F9, speak, release — the transcript is typed at your cursor.

A small red dot sits at the bottom-center of the screen whenever f9-talk is running, so you can see it's alive and listening. While you hold F9 it morphs into a red voice wave that reacts to your voice, then settles back to the dot on release.

To quit: hover the dot — it turns into a red × — and click it. The tool exits cleanly; relaunch it from the apps menu (or just log in again, it autostarts).

Options

Command	Result
f9-talk	Run it — hold F9 to dictate
f9-talk --indicator-margin 80	Pixels the indicator sits above the bottom edge (default 20)
f9-talk -v	Verbose logging
f9-talk install [--user|--system]	Set up desktop integration (apps menu, autostart, udev rule, input group)
f9-talk uninstall [--user|--system]	Reverse it. Secrets are preserved.

To make a flag permanent, edit Exec= in your autostart entry (~/.config/autostart/f9-talk.desktop).

Build, architecture, troubleshooting

See docs/architecture.md for the workspace layout, reliability mechanisms, build-from-source instructions, and the troubleshooting table.

License

MIT.