noctalia-ostt/README.md

OSTT

Voice-to-text for the Noctalia bar, powered by OSTT.

Click the microphone (or bind a hotkey) to start recording — the capsule turns into a red record indicator with an elapsed timer while the microphone is live. Click again to stop: OSTT transcribes the audio and, by default, pastes the transcript straight into the focused app (ostt --paste). No popup terminal is spawned; the recorder runs headlessly and the bar capsule is the only UI.

The indicator also lights up for recordings started outside Noctalia (e.g. an ostt launch hotkey), since the plugin watches OSTT's own runtime state.

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	prdlk/ostt
Entries	Bar widget: recorder; service: monitor
Requires	ostt, script (util-linux)

For paste output on Wayland you also need wtype or ydotool (xdotool on X11) — see the OSTT docs. Pick a transcription model once with ostt model / ostt auth.

Usage

Add the OSTT widget from the Add-widget picker.

Interaction	Action
Left click	Start recording / stop & transcribe
Right click	Cancel the in-flight session (no transcription)

Widget states: mic glyph (idle) → red filled mic + m:ss timer (recording) → spinner (transcribing).

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	Description
output_mode	select	paste	Where the transcript goes: paste into the focused app, or copy to the clipboard.
model	string	(empty)	Optional provider/model override (e.g. deepgram/nova-3, whisper/turbo). Empty uses the model selected with ostt model.
process_action	string	(empty)	Optional post-processing action id from ostt.toml (ostt -p <action>).
show_elapsed	bool	true	Show the elapsed timer while recording.
notify_on_done	bool	true	Notify when the transcript has been delivered.
extra_args	string	(empty)	Advanced: appended verbatim to ostt record (e.g. --param language=sv).

Hotkeys (IPC)

The widget exposes IPC events for compositor keybinds:

noctalia msg plugin prdlk/ostt:recorder focused toggle   # start / stop & transcribe
noctalia msg plugin prdlk/ostt:recorder focused start
noctalia msg plugin prdlk/ostt:recorder focused stop
noctalia msg plugin prdlk/ostt:recorder focused cancel

Example (niri):

Mod+Space { spawn "noctalia" "msg" "plugin" "prdlk/ostt:recorder" "focused" "toggle"; }

How it works

• OSTT's recorder is a TUI, so the widget runs it inside a throwaway pty via script(1) — headless, no window.
• Stopping uses OSTT's external-trigger contract: SIGUSR1 finishes the recording and runs transcription (the same mechanism ostt launch uses).
• The monitor service polls $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/ostt/recording.pid (liveness-checked) and publishes idle / starting / recording / transcribing to the widget, plus an exit-code file written by the pty wrapper so failed transcriptions surface as error notifications.