claude-speak

SpeakIt

System-wide macOS text-to-speech menu-bar app. Hit a hotkey, hear the current selection. A floating bubble appears near your cursor with play/pause/stop. Also reads Claude Code responses aloud and speaks the contents of the clipboard when you copy from Claude desktop.

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Quick install (recommended)

brew tap Atemndobs/speakit https://github.com/Atemndobs/SpeakIt
brew install --cask speakit
open -a SpeakIt

That single tap-then-install pulls a pre-built universal .app, installs pipx, runs pipx install edge-tts for the neural voices, and registers the binary with Launch Services. No Xcode required.

First launch checklist:

1. Right-click SpeakIt in /Applications → Open → confirm. One-time Gatekeeper bypass (app is signed ad-hoc, not yet Apple-notarized).
2. macOS will ask for Accessibility permission → System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → enable SpeakIt.
3. Quit (menu bar icon → Quit SpeakIt) and relaunch once.

Test it: select text anywhere → press ⌃⌘S → you should hear it.

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Supported platforms

Architecture	Status	Notes
Apple Silicon (arm64, M1/M2/M3/M4)	✅ Supported	Native, primary dev target
Intel (x86_64)	✅ Supported	Universal binary since v0.2.1

OS: macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later. macOS 13 and below are unsupported.

The .app is shipped as a universal binary; lipo -info /Applications/SpeakIt.app/Contents/MacOS/SpeakIt should report x86_64 arm64.

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What gets installed

Component	Source	Why
SpeakIt.app → /Applications/	GitHub release zip	The app itself
pipx (Homebrew formula)	brew	To install edge-tts
edge-tts (Python package)	pipx	Free, high-quality Microsoft Edge Neural voices

If you prefer the offline Apple Speech engine only, edge-tts is harmless to leave installed but unused. To skip it entirely, install from source instead (next section).

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Install from source

For contributors, or if you don't want pipx/edge-tts on your machine.

Prerequisites:

• macOS 14+
• Xcode Command Line Tools: xcode-select --install
• Optional: brew install pipx && pipx install edge-tts for neural voices

Build & install the .app:

git clone https://github.com/Atemndobs/SpeakIt.git
cd SpeakIt
./scripts/build-app.sh
open ~/Applications/SpeakIt.app

This produces a universal .app under ~/Applications/SpeakIt.app, ad-hoc signed and registered with Launch Services. The build invokes swift build -c release --arch arm64 --arch x86_64 and copies SwiftPM resource bundles into the bundle so Bundle.module resolves on both architectures.

Run in dev mode (no .app, no Services menu):

swift run

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Claude Code integration

Once SpeakIt.app is installed and running, install the Claude Code plugin:

/plugin marketplace add Atemndobs/SpeakIt
/plugin install claude-speak
/reload-plugins

That registers:

• /speak <text> — speak arbitrary text
• /speak-file <path> — speak a file's contents
• /speak-stop — halt playback
• Stop hook — auto-reads every Claude Code response

Plugin source lives at claude-speak/. To disable auto-read without uninstalling: export CLAUDE_SPEAK=0.

In the SpeakIt menu bar dropdown, toggle "Speak copies from Claude" ON to also speak whatever you copy from the Claude desktop app (com.anthropic.claudefordesktop).

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v0.2 — what works

• Menu-bar app (no Dock icon)
• Global hotkey (default ⌃⌘S) → captures current selection → speaks it
• Floating bubble near cursor with pause/stop
• Two engines: Apple Speech (offline) + Microsoft Edge Neural (online, free, higher quality)
• Voice picker per engine, speed slider
• Provider abstraction (next: ElevenLabs / OpenAI as paid options)
• Claude Code plugin (claude-speak) — auto-read Stop hook + slash commands
• Speak-on-copy from Claude desktop app
• Chrome extension speaker button on claude.ai / claude.com

Note on hotkeys

The fn key is intercepted by macOS at a level below standard global hotkey APIs, so combos like fn+⌘+S aren't possible without a CGEventTap (intrusive, extra permissions). Default is ⌃⌘S; rebind from the menu bar.

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Use

1. Select text anywhere
2. Press ⌃⌘S
3. A bubble appears near your cursor; the voice starts speaking
4. Click pause/stop on the bubble, or use the menu bar item

For the macOS Services menu entry: right-click selected text → Services → "Speak with SpeakIt". Services indexing is async — if the menu item doesn't appear right away, wait a few seconds, or check System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Services → Text.

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Source layout