dikt

Voice dictation for the terminal. Record, transcribe, copy — zero npm dependencies.

Uses Mistral's Voxtral for speech-to-text.

Install

npm install -g dikt

Requires sox for audio recording (not needed for --file):

# macOS
brew install sox

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install sox

# Arch
sudo pacman -S sox

Optional dependencies for --file mode:

• ffmpeg — enables compression, chunked transcription of long files, and broader format support
• yt-dlp — enables transcribing audio from URLs (YouTube, podcasts, etc.)

Setup

On first run, dikt will prompt you for your Mistral API key and model preferences:

dikt setup

Config is stored in ~/.config/dikt/config.json.

Usage

dikt

This opens an interactive TUI where you can record, transcribe, and copy text.

Keys

| Key | Action | |---|---| | Space | Start / stop recording | | c / Enter | Copy transcript to clipboard | | a | Toggle auto-copy | | h | Cycle through history | | r | Re-transcribe last recording | | Esc | Cancel recording | | s | Re-run setup | | ? | Show keybindings | | q | Quit |

Single-shot mode

# Print transcript to stdout
dikt -q

# Output JSON
dikt --json

# Pipe to another tool
dikt -q | claude

# Wait longer before auto-stopping
dikt -q --silence 5

Stream mode

Continuously transcribe, emitting chunks on pauses:

dikt --stream

# Stream as JSON Lines
dikt --stream --json

# Stream as continuous flowing text
dikt --stream -n

# Stream continuously until Ctrl+C
dikt --stream --silence 0

File mode

Transcribe an existing audio file (wav, mp3, m4a, flac, ogg, webm, aac, wma, and more):

dikt --file meeting.wav

# Save to a file (.json auto-enables JSON output)
dikt --file meeting.wav -o transcript.json
dikt --file meeting.wav -o transcript.txt

# With JSON output
dikt --file recording.mp3 --json

# Transcribe from a URL (requires yt-dlp)
dikt --file https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
dikt --file https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID -o transcript.txt

Speaker identification & timestamps

# Speaker labels
dikt -q --diarize

# Timestamps
dikt -q --timestamps segment
dikt -q --timestamps word
dikt --file lecture.mp3 --timestamps segment

# Combined with JSON
dikt -q --json --diarize

Options

| Flag | Description | |---|---| | --file <path\|url> | Transcribe audio file or URL (via yt-dlp) | | -o, --output <path> | Write output to file (.json auto-enables JSON) | | --stream | Stream transcription chunks on pauses | | --json | Output JSON (single-shot or stream) | | -q, --quiet | Record once, print transcript to stdout | | --silence <seconds> | Silence duration before auto-stop (default: 2.0) | | --pause <seconds> | Pause duration to split stream chunks (default: 1.0) | | --language <code> | Language code, e.g. en, de, fr (default: auto) | | --timestamps <granularity> | Add timestamps: segment or word | | --diarize | Enable speaker identification | | -n, --no-newline | Join stream chunks without newlines | | --no-color | Disable colored output | | --no-input | Fail if config is missing (no wizard) | | --setup | Run setup wizard | | --update | Update to latest version | | --version | Show version | | -h, --help | Show help |

Update

dikt update

Environment variables

| Variable | Description | |---|---| | DIKT_API_KEY | Override API key | | DIKT_MODEL | Override model (default: voxtral-mini-latest) | | DIKT_LANGUAGE | Override language (default: auto) | | DIKT_TEMPERATURE | Override temperature | | DIKT_CONTEXT_BIAS | Override context bias |

License

MIT