OneScribe

Instant dictation for macOS and Linux.
One hotkey. No window. Text ready on your clipboard.

why

Typing is slow

Speaking is 3–4× faster than typing.
Most dictation tools are heavyweight, cloud-locked, or tied to a specific app.

OneScribe is a background utility: press a hotkey, speak, and the transcription is copied to your clipboard.

how it works

Four steps

⌥ Space

→

record

→

transcribe

→

clipboard

Press once to start recording. Press again to stop.
Text is copied to your clipboard.
macOS pastes automatically; Linux leaves it ready for manual paste.
No window. No clicks to transcribe.

platforms

macOS + Linux

macOS

Swift + AppKit
Menu bar app
Option + Space hotkey
AVFoundation recording
CGEvent auto-paste
macOS 14+

Linux

Rust
System tray (SNI)
Alt + Space hotkey
PipeWire + ffmpeg
Clipboard-only output
GNOME Wayland

transcription

Local or cloud

On Linux, transcription runs fully on-device via transcribe.cpp (ggml) — and it's streaming: text is transcribed live while you speak, so the transcript is ready the instant you stop, no matter how long you talked.

The cloud backend — whisper-large-v3-turbo via Groq's API — remains a config switch away, and is what macOS uses.

# local (Linux default recommendation)
model: nemotron-speech-streaming-en-0.6b-Q8_0.gguf
mic → 16 kHz PCM chunks → streaming decode → ~0.6 s stop-to-clipboard

# cloud
POST api.groq.com/openai/v1/audio/transcriptions
model: whisper-large-v3-turbo

macOS internals

macOS architecture

Component	Role
`HotkeyManager`	NSEvent global monitor for Option+Space
`RecordingManager`	AVAudioRecorder → .m4a at 16 kHz mono
`GroqTranscriber`	URLSession multipart POST, 30s timeout
`AutoPaster`	NSPasteboard + CGEvent Cmd+V synthesis
`TranscriptionJournal`	Daily .md log in ~/Documents/OneScribe/
`StatusItemController`	Menu bar icon with state badges

linux internals

Linux architecture

Module	Role
`hotkey_daemon`	Async event loop, XDG GlobalShortcuts portal
`recorder`	pw-record → live PCM chunks (local) or ffmpeg Opus/OGG (cloud)
`engine`	Streaming transcribe.cpp inference (Nemotron GGUF) or Groq
`groq`	Pure request builder + response parser
`transport`	reqwest blocking HTTP execution
`platform`	Clipboard via wl-copy / xclip / xsel
`tray_app`	ksni StatusNotifierItem tray

global hotkeys

Platform-specific approach

macOS

NSEvent global monitor
Option + Space (keyCode 49)
Requires Accessibility permission
Works in all apps system-wide

Linux

XDG GlobalShortcuts portal
Alt + Space (preferred)
Sandboxed — no special perms
Requires xdg-desktop-portal-gnome

clipboard

Platform-specific completion

macOS

NSPasteboard + CGEvent
Synthesises Cmd+V
Works in all apps
Requires Accessibility

Linux

Copies to the clipboard
wl-copy / xclip / xsel
No synthetic key injection
Paste manually in the target app

journal

Daily Markdown log

Every transcription is appended to a daily file in ~/Documents/OneScribe/. Both platforms produce identical Markdown.

# Transcriptions - May 31, 2026

## 2:34 PM
The text you dictated goes here.

---

configuration

Zero config on Linux

Local transcription is the default — no account, no key, no network, no config file. The model downloads itself on first run.

# Linux: nothing to configure (local is default)

# Linux: opt into Groq cloud instead
{"backend":"groq","groq_api_key":"your-key"}

# macOS: interactive Groq setup
make setup

design

Zero UI

No window ever opens during normal use.
The tray icon and its badge are the entire interface.

Idle	Icon in tray — no badge
Recording	Red dot badge (macOS) / attention status (Linux)
Transcribing	Grey pill badge
Done	Completion sound + text copied (and auto-pasted on macOS)

get started · macOS

macOS quick start

# 1. Get a Groq API key
# console.groq.com/keys

# 2. Store it
make setup

# 3. Build and install
make build

# 4. Grant Accessibility permission
# System Settings → Privacy → Accessibility

# Press Option+Space to record

get started · linux

Linux quick start

# 1. Install runtime deps
# pipewire ffmpeg wl-clipboard

# 2. Build (needs cmake + a C++ toolchain)
cd linux && cargo build --release

# 3. Run the daemon — local transcription is the
# default; the model auto-downloads on first run
./target/release/onescribe-linux-core daemon

# Press Alt+Space to record — offline