| name | erm-tune |
| description | Diagnose and tune erm's output quality. Use when an erm run is imperfect or the user wants to adjust settings — fillers still audible, real words clipped, splices click or sound smeared/blurry, noise floor pumps or is audible, words run together, detection too aggressive or missing fillers, or questions about crossfade, pause spacing, denoise, room tone, models, or detection thresholds. For first-time install or a basic clean, use the erm skill instead. |
| allowed-tools | Bash, Read, AskUserQuestion |
erm — tune and troubleshoot
erm exposes ~30 flags that cluster into five knob groups. Tune by symptom,
change one cluster at a time, and re-check with --dry-run + validate.
Launcher convention. This skill assumes erm is already runnable (set up by the
erm skill). In the commands below, erm means that launcher: uvx erm … if you
ran it via uv, or plain erm … after activating the venv where it's installed.
Resolving documentation
Resolve detail in this order (broadest compatibility last):
erm --help — definitive flag names, defaults, and units.- Public docs: https://dougcalobrisi.github.io/erm/ —
troubleshooting,
detection, render-pipeline, denoise-and-room-tone.
- Bundled docs (Claude plugin only):
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/docs/*.md;
flag defaults in ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/src/erm/cli.py.
Never guess values — read one of the above before recommending a setting.
1. Diagnose first — ask what's wrong
Use AskUserQuestion to pin the symptom (each maps to a different cluster), unless
the user already described it:
- Fillers still audible / missed → detection
- A specific word should also be cut, or a default word is over-matching →
detection word list (
--add-fillers / --remove-fillers)
- Real words clipped or chopped → detection (too aggressive) / refinement
- Splices click, pop, or sound smeared/blurry → crossfade / refinement
- Noise floor pumps, audible level changes at edits → denoise / room tone
- Words run together with no breath → splice spacing
- Too slow → detection (
--model/--device)
Then read the troubleshooting doc for the symptom→knob fix.
2. The five knob clusters
Read the linked doc page for good-value ranges before changing anything.
- Detection aggressiveness (what gets cut) —
--model (biggest lever),
--detect-gaps, --confirm-pitch, --gap-min-ms, --gap-min-voiced-ms,
--gap-max-voiced-ms, --intraword-min-ms, --fillers. → detection doc.
- Word list (pass 1):
--add-fillers "word,word" adds words on top of
the defaults; --remove-fillers "word" drops a default that over-matches
(removal wins). Prefer these over --fillers, which replaces the whole set.
- Refinement / merge (clean splice points) —
--search-ms,
--merge-gap-ms. → render-pipeline doc.
- Splice spacing (remove mode breathing room) —
--pad-pause-factor,
--pad-min-ms, --pad-max-ms, --min-gap-ms. → render-pipeline doc.
- Crossfade (splice smoothness) —
--crossfade-factor,
--min-crossfade-ms, --max-crossfade-ms, --crossfade-ms. → render-pipeline doc.
- Denoise / room tone (uniform floor) —
--denoise none|pre|post|hybrid,
--denoise-nr, --denoise-nf, --room-tone/--no-room-tone,
--room-tone-level-db, --room-tone-source. → denoise-and-room-tone doc.
3. Iterate safely
- Tune detection against the cut list first:
erm IN.wav --dry-run and
inspect the JSON — cheaper than re-rendering audio.
- Change one cluster, re-render, and
erm validate IN.wav OUT.wav.
- Compare against the previous output before changing anything else.
Optional: parallel A/B (enhancement)
When several settings are plausible, you may render a few variants with different
knob values in parallel, validate each, and compare — instead of serial
guess-and-check. Keep variants labeled by the flag that changed.
