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Voice Wake & Push-to-Talk

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Requirements

Voice Wake and push-to-talk require macOS 26 or newer. On older macOS the controls are hidden from the Voice settings page, which shows the macOS 26 requirement instead.

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Modes

  • Wake-word mode (default): an always-on Speech recognizer waits for trigger tokens (swabbleTriggerWords). On match it starts capture, shows the overlay with partial text, and auto-sends after silence.
  • Push-to-talk (hold Right Option): hold the right Option key to capture immediately, no trigger needed. The overlay appears while held; releasing finalizes and forwards after a short delay so you can edit the text.

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Runtime behavior (wake-word)

  • The recognizer lives in VoiceWakeRuntime.
  • Trigger fires only when there is a meaningful pause between the wake word and the next word (triggerPauseWindow = 0.55s). The overlay/chime can start on the pause even before the command begins.
  • Silence windows: 2.0s (silenceWindow) when speech is flowing, 5.0s (triggerOnlySilenceWindow) if only the trigger was heard.
  • Hard stop: 120s (captureHardStop) to prevent runaway sessions.
  • Debounce between sessions: 350ms (debounceAfterSend) after a send.
  • The overlay is driven via VoiceWakeOverlayController, with committed/volatile text coloring.
  • After send, the recognizer restarts cleanly to listen for the next trigger.

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Lifecycle invariants

  • If Voice Wake is enabled and permissions are granted, the wake-word recognizer stays listening, except during an active push-to-talk capture.
  • Overlay dismissal, including manual dismiss via the X button, always resumes the recognizer: VoiceSessionCoordinator.overlayDidDismiss calls VoiceWakeRuntime.refresh(state:) on every dismiss path. See Voice overlay for the session/token model.

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Push-to-talk specifics

  • Hotkey detection uses a global .flagsChanged monitor for right Option (keyCode 61 + .option). It only observes events, never swallows them.
  • Capture lives in VoicePushToTalk: starts Speech immediately, streams partials to the overlay, and calls VoiceWakeForwarder on release.
  • Starting push-to-talk pauses the wake-word runtime to avoid dueling audio taps; it restarts automatically after release.
  • Permissions: requires Microphone + Speech; receiving key events needs Accessibility/Input Monitoring approval.
  • External keyboards: some do not expose right Option as expected. Offer a fallback shortcut if users report misses.

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User-facing settings

  • Voice Wake toggle: enables the wake-word runtime.
  • Hold Right Option to talk: enables the push-to-talk monitor.
  • Language and mic pickers, a live level meter, a trigger-word table, and a tester (local-only, never forwards).
  • The mic picker preserves the last selection if a device disconnects, shows a disconnected hint, and temporarily falls back to the system default until it returns.
  • Sounds: chimes on trigger detect and on send, defaulting to the macOS “Glass” system sound. Pick any NSSound-loadable file (e.g. MP3/WAV/AIFF) per event, or choose No Sound.

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Forwarding behavior

  • On forward, VoiceWakeForwarder.selectedSessionOptions picks the active WebChat session key if one is set, otherwise the gateway’s main session key.
  • It looks up that session via sessions.list and derives the delivery channel and target from the session’s delivery context (falling back to its last channel/target, then to a parsed session key), defaulting to WebChat if nothing resolves.
  • If delivery fails, the error is logged (voicewake.forward category) and the run is still visible via WebChat/session logs.

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Forwarding payload

  • VoiceWakeForwarder.prefixedTranscript(_:) prepends a machine-hint line (resolved host name, falling back to “this Mac”) before the transcript, shared between wake-word and push-to-talk paths.

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Quick verification

  • Toggle push-to-talk on, hold Right Option, speak, release: overlay should show partials then send.
  • While holding, the menu-bar ears should stay enlarged (triggerVoiceEars(ttl: nil)); they drop after release.