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voice-wake-say

Speak responses aloud on macOS using the built-in `say`

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Voice Wake Say

Overview

Use macOS say to read the assistant's response out loud whenever the conversation came from Voice Wake/voice recognition. Do not use the tts tool (it calls cloud providers).

When to Use say (CHECK EVERY MESSAGE INDIVIDUALLY)

IF the user message STARTS WITH: User talked via voice recognition

  • Step 1: Acknowledge with say first (so the user knows you heard them)
  • Step 2: Then perform the task
  • Step 3: Optionally speak again when done if it makes sense

IF the user message does NOT start with that exact phrase

  • THEN: Do NOT use say. Text-only response only.

Critical:

  • Check EACH message individually — context does NOT carry over
  • The trigger phrase must be at the VERY START of the message
  • For tasks that take time, acknowledge FIRST so the user knows you're working

Workflow

  1. Detect Voice Wake context
  • Trigger ONLY when the latest user/system message STARTS WITH User talked via voice recognition
  • If the message instructs "repeat prompt first", keep that behavior in the response.
  1. Prepare spoken text
  • Use the final response text as the basis.
  • Strip markdown/code blocks; if the response is long or code-heavy, speak a short summary and mention that details are on screen.
  1. Speak with say (local macOS TTS)
printf '%s' "$SPOKEN_TEXT" | say

Optional controls (use only if set):

printf '%s' "$SPOKEN_TEXT" | say -v "$SAY_VOICE"
printf '%s' "$SPOKEN_TEXT" | say -r "$SAY_RATE"

Failure handling

  • If say is unavailable or errors, still send the text response and note that TTS failed.