Dictum

Dictum is a Python voice-to-text command tool designed for Wayland compositors such as Hyprland and Sway. It is intended to be triggered from a hotkey, record microphone audio, transcribe it with Parakeet TDT v3 0.6B, polish the transcription with a local or cloud LLM, and send the final text to the active window, clipboard, stdout, or a file.

Goals

• Fast hotkey workflow for dictation and text transformation.
• Persistent daemon for state, warm models, and lower latency.
• Companion CLI for key bindings and scripting.
• Pluggable ASR, LLM, recorder, and output backends.
• Wayland-first output through wtype, ydotool, wl-copy, or stdout.

Architecture

Hyprland/Sway hotkey
  -> dictum CLI (thin IPC client)
  -> daemon command over local Unix socket
  -> record mic audio (sounddevice/PipeWire)
  -> transcribe with Parakeet (CrispASR HTTP server, port 8081)
  -> polish with LLM (llama.cpp server, port 8080)
  -> paste/copy/print/save result

Moving Parts

Component	Technology	Purpose
CLI	Python + Typer	Hotkey-friendly commands (toggle, start, stop, once, status)
Daemon	Python + asyncio	State machine, IPC server, pipeline orchestration
Recorder	sounddevice (PortAudio)	PipeWire/PulseAudio capture, silence watchdog
ASR	CrispASR (C++/Vulkan)	Parakeet TDT v3 0.6B GGUF, HTTP server mode (warm)
LLM	llama.cpp (C++/Vulkan)	Qwen 3.5-4B GGUF, OpenAI-compatible HTTP server (warm)
Output	wtype / ydotool / wl-copy	Wayland text insertion
Notify	D-Bus (gdbus)	Desktop notifications

State Machine

idle -> recording -> transcribing -> polishing -> pasting -> idle
              \-> failed (on error) ----------------------------> idle

polishing is skipped if the profile disables LLM rewriting.

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Quick Start

1. Prerequisites

• GPU: Discrete GPU with Vulkan support (optional but recommended)
• Vulkan loader: libvulkan1 / vulkan-loader + a compatible ICD
• Python: 3.11+ with uv (recommended) or pip

2. Install Dictum

# From PyPI, once published
uv tool install dictum-asr

# Or from a local source checkout while developing
git clone https://github.com/hermitm0nk/dictum.git
cd dictum
uv tool install .

The wheel is pure Python and tiny (tens of KB). The native C++ binaries are no longer built from source at install time. Instead, Dictum downloads pinned upstream releases on first use:

• llama.cpp → llama-server (Vulkan build, b9699)
• CrispASR → parakeet-main (Vulkan build, v0.7.2)

Pre-fetch them explicitly (recommended before binding a hotkey):

dictum native install            # fetch both, Vulkan variant
dictum native install --lib llama
dictum native install --variant cpu   # if no Vulkan ICD is present
dictum native status             # show what's installed and where

Binaries land under $DICTUM_NATIVE_DIR when set, otherwise under $XDG_DATA_HOME/dictum/native/, or ~/.local/share/dictum/native/. The llama-server binary ships with RUNPATH=$ORIGIN so it finds its sibling .so files automatically; parakeet-main is statically linked. No LD_LIBRARY_PATH is required in normal use.

To override the bundled binaries entirely, set DICTUM_LLM_BIN and/or DICTUM_PARAKEET_BIN to point at your own builds — Dictum will not attempt to download when an override is set.

3. Download Models

# Parakeet ASR (multilingual, 4-bit quant)
huggingface-cli download cstr/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3-GGUF \
  parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3-q4_k.gguf \
  --local-dir ~/.cache/dictum/models/

# Qwen LLM (Q3 quant for polishing)
huggingface-cli download unsloth/Qwen3.5-4B-GGUF \
  Qwen3.5-4B-Q3_K_M.gguf \
  --local-dir ~/.cache/dictum/models/

By default Dictum downloads models on first use into $DICTUM_MODEL_DIR when set, otherwise into $XDG_CACHE_HOME/dictum/models or ~/.cache/dictum/models.

4. Configure (Optional)

mkdir -p ~/.config/dictum
cp examples/config.toml ~/.config/dictum/config.toml
# Edit profiles, ASR/LLM settings, output target

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Usage

Start the Daemon

# Foreground (testing)
dictum daemon --profile default

# Or as systemd user service (persistent, see below)

Hotkey Commands

# Toggle recording (press once to start, again to stop & process)
dictum toggle --profile default --result paste

# Explicit start/stop
dictum start --profile default
dictum stop --result paste

# One-shot (no daemon needed)
dictum once --result stdout --duration 30

# Status
dictum status
dictum status --json

Output Targets (--result)

Target	Behavior
paste	Types into focused window via wtype/ydotool (fallback: clipboard)
clipboard	Copies to clipboard via wl-copy
stdout	Prints to terminal
file	Writes to /tmp/dictum-output.txt
none	No output

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Systemd User Service (Persistent Daemon)

# Install, enable (starts at login), but do not start now
dictum service install

# Install and start immediately
dictum service install --now

# Check status
dictum service status

# Remove the service
dictum service uninstall

The unit file is bundled with the wheel and copied to ~/.config/systemd/user/dictum.service (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/systemd/user/). User units start at graphical/login session, not at boot.

The bundled unit (dictum/data/dictum.service):

[Unit]
Description=Dictum voice dictation daemon
After=graphical-session.target pipewire.service

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=%h/.local/bin/dictum daemon
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=2

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

You can still manage the service directly with systemctl --user {start,stop,restart,status} dictum. Edit the installed unit file to customize ExecStart (e.g. add --profile flags) and run systemctl --user daemon-reload.

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Hyprland Binding

Add to ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf:

# Dictum voice dictation (ScrollLock to toggle)
bind = , Scroll_Lock, exec, dictum toggle --profile default --result paste

Reload config:

hyprctl reload