Chinwag

Local push-to-talk dictation for macOS, powered by Cohere Transcribe on Apple Metal.

Install

Requires Apple silicon, macOS 14+, and Xcode command-line tools.

scripts/service install

First launch downloads a 1.56 GB model. Grant Microphone and Accessibility access in Settings.

Optional: pass --sign "Apple Development: Your Name (TEAMID)" to preserve permissions across rebuilds.

Use

Hold Option-Space, speak, then release to paste. If focus changed, the text stays on the clipboard. Audio stays on your Mac.

scripts/service status
scripts/service uninstall

Dictation and API clients share one loaded model. Quitting Chinwag stops the API and unloads the model. Installing replaces the old separate service LaunchAgent if present.

API

OpenAI-compatible transcription for native apps and CLI clients.

Base URL  http://127.0.0.1:3212/v1
POST      /audio/transcriptions
Model     whisper-1

No API key required. Use not-needed if your client requires one. Loopback only, no HTTP authentication. Keep it private.

Check

scripts/check

With the model installed, python3 tests/integration/run.py tests real Metal transcription and measures warm API latency.