| name | transcribe |
| description | Transcribe an audio recording (m4a/mp3/wav/ogg/flac) to markdown locally with whisper.cpp. Auto-detects language (multilingual, tuned for EN/FR), CPU-only, private — no API, no GPU. Self-bootstrapping: builds the pipeline on first use if missing. Use when the user wants to transcribe audio, convert a recording to text, get a transcript, or turn a voice memo into markdown. Triggers include "transcribe", "transcription", "audio to text", "voice memo to markdown". |
Transcribe audio → markdown (local, whisper.cpp)
Local CPU transcription, language auto-detected (multilingual; tuned for EN/FR), no API/GPU. Output: markdown with
frontmatter + full text + timestamps. The wrapper scripts/transcribe.sh self-discovers whisper.cpp
($WHISPER_DIR → ~/tools/whisper.cpp → ~/whisper.cpp → /opt/whisper.cpp). Invoke it via the
plugin root: ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/transcribe/scripts/transcribe.sh.
Instructions
- Resolve the audio file from the request (
$ARGUMENTS). Accept m4a/mp3/wav/ogg/flac; if none given, ask.
- Ensure the pipeline exists — probe once:
bash "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/transcribe/scripts/transcribe.sh" --help >/dev/null 2>&1; echo $?. Exit 2 (or "whisper.cpp not found") → follow setup.md to build it (warn: one-time ~10-min build + ~1.5 GB download), then continue.
- Run:
bash "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/transcribe/scripts/transcribe.sh" "<audio-path>" (output defaults to <input>.md). Flags on request: --lang fr|en, --model small|large-v3 (only medium ships by default — others must be downloaded first, see setup.md), --no-timestamps, custom output as 2nd positional arg.
- Set expectations: a 10–20 min file takes several minutes on CPU — let it run.
- When done: Read the
.md and show a short preview (frontmatter + first lines).
Notes
- WSL-safe: wrapper does all decode/temp in native
/tmp; only final .md + source may live on /mnt/c.
- Non-standard install:
export WHISPER_DIR=/path/to/whisper.cpp.
- Frontmatter fields, limitations, and upgrade paths (diarization, word-level timestamps, long files): see
setup.md § Reference.
