Claude Speak

Vocalize text using high-quality text-to-speech. British male voice (bm_george) by default. Supports concurrent audio generation via a process pool.

When to Use

Invoke when user:

• Asks to "say this out loud" or "speak this"
• Wants narration or audio feedback
• Uses /speak command
• Requests vocalization of content

Core Command

~/Projects/claude-speak/.venv/bin/claude-speak-client "Text to speak"

That's it. The daemon runs in background via launchd - instant response.

TIP: For longer text, append & to run fire-and-forget (see "Long Text" section below).

Options

# Different voice
~/Projects/claude-speak/.venv/bin/claude-speak-client -v af_heart "Warm female voice"

# Adjust speed (default 1.0)
~/Projects/claude-speak/.venv/bin/claude-speak-client -s 1.2 "Speaking faster"

# Quiet mode (suppress errors)
~/Projects/claude-speak/.venv/bin/claude-speak-client -q "Silent on success"

# Custom timeout (default: 300s / 5 min)
~/Projects/claude-speak/.venv/bin/claude-speak-client -t 600 "Very long text..."

Concurrency

The daemon supports concurrent audio generation via a ProcessPoolExecutor. Multiple callers can generate audio simultaneously.

Two request paths:

• speak (play aloud) — serialized through a single playback queue to prevent audio overlap
• generate_file (return WAV bytes) — parallelized across worker processes, each with its own model copy

Daemon pool configuration:

# Start with custom worker count (default: auto based on CPU count)
~/Projects/claude-speak/.venv/bin/claude-speak-daemon start --workers 3

# Check pool status
python3 -c "from claude_speak_daemon import send_command; print(send_command({'command': 'ping'}))"
# Returns: {"success": true, "status": "ready", "num_workers": 3, "playback_queue_depth": 0}

Programmatic file generation (for concurrent use):

from claude_speak_daemon import send_command
result = send_command({
    "command": "generate_file",
    "text": "Generate audio without playing",
    "voice": "bm_george",
    "speed": 1.0
}, timeout=120.0)
# result: {"success": true, "audio_base64": "...", "duration": 2.7, "format": "wav"}

Long Text (3+ sentences)

For longer content, use fire-and-forget mode with shell backgrounding:

~/Projects/claude-speak/.venv/bin/claude-speak-client "Your longer text here..." &

The trailing & runs the command in the background at the shell level, so Claude Code doesn't track it as a task. The audio plays while the conversation continues—no timeout errors or false "failed" notifications.

Why this works: Claude Code's run_in_background still monitors the task and may report timeout failures even when audio completes successfully. Shell backgrounding (&) avoids this entirely.

Available Voices

| Voice | Description | |-------|-------------| | bm_george | British male, distinguished (DEFAULT) | | af_heart | American female, warm | | am_adam | American male, deep | | bf_emma | British female, elegant |

Troubleshooting

If "Daemon not running" error:

~/Projects/claude-speak/.venv/bin/claude-speak-daemon start

After code updates, restart the daemon to pick up changes:

~/Projects/claude-speak/.venv/bin/claude-speak-daemon restart

Best Practices

• For short text (1-2 sentences): run normally
• For longer text (paragraphs): use & fire-and-forget
• For batch/concurrent generation: use generate_file command programmatically
• Check daemon status if issues arise
• Use --workers N to tune pool size for your workload