| name | edge-tts |
| description | Generate complete, production-ready TTS (Text-to-Speech) scripts and CLI tools using edge-tts — Microsoft's neural voice engine with 400+ natural-sounding voices. Use this skill whenever the user wants to speak text aloud from the terminal/PowerShell, list or search voices, select voices by name/language/gender, control rate/volume/pitch, save speech to MP3/audio files, or pipe text into a speak command. Trigger for ANY request involving TTS, speech synthesis, say command, speak function, voice output, edge-tts, or audio from scripts — even small snippets. Always check installation first and prefer uv tool install for setup.
|
PowerShell / Terminal TTS Skill (edge-tts)
Use edge-tts — free, neural-quality voices (400+), works from any terminal.
No Windows API nonsense. Sounds like a real human.
Step 1 — Check & Install
Always check if installed first:
Get-Command edge-tts -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Install with uv (preferred):
uv tool install edge-tts
Fallback with pip:
pip install edge-tts
This installs two executables: edge-tts (generate audio) and edge-playback (speak aloud).
Step 2 — Basic Usage
Speak aloud (use edge-playback, NOT edge-tts --play):
edge-playback --text "Hello world"
Save to MP3:
edge-tts --text "Hello world" --write-media output.mp3
⚠️ --play flag does NOT exist on Windows. Always use edge-playback to speak aloud.
Step 3 — Voices
List ALL voices (400+):
edge-tts --list-voices
Filter by language:
edge-tts --list-voices | Select-String "en-US"
edge-tts --list-voices | Select-String "Female"
Recommended English neural voices:
| Voice | Gender | Style |
|---|
en-US-AriaNeural | Female | Natural, warm |
en-US-JennyNeural | Female | Friendly |
en-US-GuyNeural | Male | Natural |
en-GB-SoniaNeural | Female | British |
en-GB-RyanNeural | Male | British |
Use a specific voice:
edge-playback --voice "en-US-AriaNeural" --text "Hi, I'm Aria!"
edge-tts --voice "en-US-AriaNeural" --text "Hi" --write-media aria.mp3
Step 4 — Rate, Volume, Pitch
All adjustments use +X% or -X% string format:
# Rate: default +0%, range roughly -50% to +100%
edge-playback --voice "en-US-AriaNeural" --rate "+20%" --text "Faster speech"
edge-playback --voice "en-US-AriaNeural" --rate "-30%" --text "Slower speech"
# Volume: default +0%
edge-playback --voice "en-US-AriaNeural" --volume "+50%" --text "Louder"
# Pitch: default +0Hz
edge-playback --voice "en-US-AriaNeural" --pitch "+10Hz" --text "Higher pitch"
Deeper Reading
