Qaudio-transcriber

Purpose

This skill automates audio-to-text transcription with professional Markdown output, extracting rich technical metadata (speakers, timestamps, language, file size, duration) and generating structured meeting minutes and executive summaries. It uses Faster-Whisper or Whisper with zero configuration, working universally across projects without hardcoded paths or API keys.

Inspired by tools like Plaud, this skill transforms raw audio recordings into actionable documentation, making it ideal for meetings, interviews, lectures, and content analysis.

When to Use

Invoke this skill when:

• User needs to transcribe audio/video files to text
• User wants meeting minutes automatically generated from recordings
• User requires speaker identification (diarization) in conversations
• User needs subtitles/captions (SRT, VTT formats)
• User wants executive summaries of long audio content
• User asks variations of "transcribe this audio", "convert audio to text", "generate meeting notes from recording"
• User has audio files in common formats (MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, FLAC, WEBM)

Workflow

Step 0: Discovery (Auto-detect Transcription Tools)

Objective: Identify available transcription engines without user configuration.

Actions:

Run detection commands to find installed tools:

# Check for Faster-Whisper (preferred - 4-5x faster)
if python3 -c "import faster_whisper" 2>/dev/null; then
    TRANSCRIBER="faster-whisper"
    echo "✅ Faster-Whisper detected (optimized)"
# Fallback to original Whisper
elif python3 -c "import whisper" 2>/dev/null; then
    TRANSCRIBER="whisper"
    echo "✅ OpenAI Whisper detected"
else
    TRANSCRIBER="none"
    echo "⚠️  No transcription tool found"
fi

# Check for ffmpeg (audio format conversion)
if command -v ffmpeg &>/dev/null; then
    echo "✅ ffmpeg available (format conversion enabled)"
else
    echo "ℹ️  ffmpeg not found (limited format support)"
fi

If no transcriber found:

Offer automatic installation using the provided script:

echo "⚠️  No transcription tool found"
echo ""
echo "🔧 Auto-install dependencies? (Recommended)"
read -p "Run installation script? [Y/n]: " AUTO_INSTALL

if [[ ! "$AUTO_INSTALL" =~ ^[Nn] ]]; then
    pip install faster-whisper
    brew install ffmpeg  # macOS
else
    echo ""
    echo "📦 Manual installation required:"
    echo ""
    echo "Recommended (fastest):"
    echo "  pip install faster-whisper"
    echo ""
    echo "Alternative (original):"
    echo "  pip install openai-whisper"
    echo ""
    echo "Optional (format conversion):"
    echo "  brew install ffmpeg  # macOS"
    echo "  apt install ffmpeg   # Linux"
    echo ""
    exit 1
fi

Step 1: Validate Audio File

Objective: Verify file exists, check format, and extract metadata.

Actions:

1. Accept file path or URL from user:

   • Local file: meeting.mp3
   • URL: https://example.com/audio.mp3 (download to temp directory)

2. Verify file exists:

if [[ ! -f "$AUDIO_FILE" ]]; then
    echo "❌ File not found: $AUDIO_FILE"
    exit 1
fi

3. Extract metadata using ffprobe or file utilities:

FILE_SIZE=$(du -h "$AUDIO_FILE" | cut -f1)
DURATION=$(ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration \
    -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 "$AUDIO_FILE" 2>/dev/null)
FORMAT=$(ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 -show_entries \
    stream=codec_name -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 "$AUDIO_FILE" 2>/dev/null)
DURATION_HMS=$(date -u -r "$DURATION" +%H:%M:%S 2>/dev/null || echo "Unknown")

4. Validate format (supported: MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, FLAC, WEBM):

EXTENSION="${AUDIO_FILE##*.}"
SUPPORTED_FORMATS=("mp3" "wav" "m4a" "ogg" "flac" "webm" "mp4")

if [[ ! " ${SUPPORTED_FORMATS[@]} " =~ " ${EXTENSION,,} " ]]; then
    echo "⚠️  Unsupported format: $EXTENSION"
    if command -v ffmpeg &>/dev/null; then
        echo "🔄 Converting to WAV..."
        ffmpeg -i "$AUDIO_FILE" -ar 16000 "${AUDIO_FILE%.*}.wav" -y
        AUDIO_FILE="${AUDIO_FILE%.*}.wav"
    else
        echo "❌ Install ffmpeg to convert formats: brew install ffmpeg"
        exit 1
    fi
fi

Step 2: Transcribe Audio

Transcribe using detected engine and generate structured Markdown output.

Step 3: Generate Markdown Output

Objective: Create structured Markdown with metadata, transcription, meeting minutes, and summary.

Output Template:

# Audio Transcription Report

## 📊 Metadata

| Field | Value |
|-------|-------|
| **File Name** | {filename} |
| **File Size** | {file_size} |
| **Duration** | {duration_hms} |
| **Language** | {language} ({language_code}) |
| **Processed Date** | {process_date} |
| **Speakers Identified** | {num_speakers} |
| **Transcription Engine** | {engine} (model: {model}) |


## 📋 Meeting Minutes

### Participants
- {speaker_1}
- {speaker_2}

### Topics Discussed
1. **{topic_1}** ({timestamp})
   - {key_point_1}
   - {key_point_2}

### Decisions Made
- ✅ {decision_1}
- ✅ {decision_2}

### Action Items
- [ ] **{action_1}** - Assigned to: {speaker} - Due: {date_if_mentioned}
- [ ] **{action_2}** - Assigned to: {speaker}


*Generated by Qaudio-transcriber*
*Transcription engine: {engine} | Processing time: {elapsed_time}s*

Step 4: Save Output

TIMESTAMP=$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)
TRANSCRIPT_FILE="transcript-${TIMESTAMP}.md"

echo "$TRANSCRIPT_CONTENT" > "$TRANSCRIPT_FILE"
echo "✅ Transcript saved: $TRANSCRIPT_FILE"

Step 5: Display Results Summary

echo ""
echo "✅ Transcription Complete!"
echo ""
echo "📊 Results:"
echo "  File: $OUTPUT_FILE"
echo "  Language: $LANGUAGE"
echo "  Duration: $DURATION_HMS"
echo "  Speakers: $NUM_SPEAKERS"
echo "  Words: $WORD_COUNT"
echo "  Processing time: ${ELAPSED_TIME}s"
echo ""
echo "🎯 Next steps:"
echo "  1. Review meeting minutes and action items"
echo "  2. Share report with participants"
echo "  3. Track action items to completion"

Error Handling

Error	Likely Cause	Action
Transcription tool not found	faster-whisper/whisper not installed	Auto-install with pip install faster-whisper
Unsupported audio format	File extension not supported	Convert with ffmpeg automatically
File not found	Path is incorrect	Show exact path error; ask user to verify
File too large (>1 GB)	Very long recordings	Warn about processing time; offer to split
Low quality transcript	Poor audio quality	Report confidence issues
ffmpeg not found	ffmpeg not installed	Show install command: brew install ffmpeg

Example Usage

User: Create meeting minutes from meeting-20260311.m4a
User: Convert all recordings/*.mp3 to text
User: Analyze this audio file and summarize it in English

Credits: Original skill by @ericgandrade - https://github.com/ericgandrade/claude-superskills