Voice and TTS: spoken replies and voice-note transcription

What Voice and TTS is for

Hermes can speak its replies and transcribe incoming voice messages in the CLI and on messaging platforms. Text-to-speech defaults to free Edge TTS, with options including ElevenLabs, OpenAI, MiniMax, Mistral, Google Gemini, xAI and DeepInfra, plus local engines such as Piper and KittenTTS. Speech-to-text defaults to local faster-whisper, with Groq and OpenAI Whisper among the hosted choices. You pick providers in config.yaml and add the matching API key. In chat, /voice commands toggle spoken output. This is the base for hands-free use and for voice notes on Telegram, Signal and WhatsApp.

What you need

• An API key for any hosted provider you choose (for example ELEVENLABS_API_KEY or GROQ_API_KEY); Edge TTS and local engines need none
• ffmpeg if you want Telegram voice bubbles from providers that do not output Opus natively
• faster-whisper installed for the default local transcription

Set it up

1. 1

   Add the chosen provider's API key to your environment, or install a local engine (Piper is available through hermes tools under Text-to-Speech)

2. 2

   Set tts.provider and/or stt.provider in ~/.hermes/config.yaml

3. 3

   Install ffmpeg if needed, restart Hermes, then use /voice on or /voice tts in the CLI

Check it works

• CLI audio output appears in ~/.hermes/audio_cache/
• On Telegram, a round voice bubble means Opus delivery; a rectangular player usually means ffmpeg is missing
• Send a voice note on a messaging platform and confirm Hermes responds to its content

Limits and failure points

• An explicitly set stt.provider errors out rather than falling back to another engine
• Local engines load lazily, so the first spoken reply can be slow
• Plugin STT providers don't get picker rows in hermes tools yet, and command-based providers run with your user's permissions
• The messaging overview Voice column means transcription and/or spoken replies, not necessarily live conversation. Its WhatsApp, Signal, BlueBubbles and LINE entries differ from their detailed pages; consult each platform note in the messaging directory.
• Local Faster-Whisper is unavailable on native Windows ARM64 and Intel macOS in the documented dependency matrix. Select an available provider explicitly.

Messaging setup

All messaging platforms

• Hermes Agent messaging gateway explained

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