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better-dsh 0.2.5 → 0.3.0-c

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----
-sidebar_position: 10
-title: "Voice Mode"
-description: "Real-time voice conversations with Hermes Agent — CLI, Telegram, Discord (DMs, text channels, and voice channels)"
----
-# Voice Mode
-Hermes Agent supports full voice interaction across CLI and messaging platforms. Talk to the agent using your microphone, hear spoken replies, and have live voice conversations in Discord voice channels.
-If you want a practical setup walkthrough with recommended configurations and real usage patterns, see [Use Voice Mode with Hermes](../../guides/use-voice-mode-with-hermes.md).
-For hands-free session start — saying "hey hermes" (or any phrase) to open a fresh voice session on the CLI, TUI, or desktop app — see [Wake Word](/user-guide/features/wake-word).
-## Prerequisites
-Before using voice features, make sure you have:
-1. **Hermes Agent installed** — via the install script (see [Installation](/getting-started/installation))
-2. **An LLM provider configured** — run `hermes model` or set your preferred provider credentials in `~/.hermes/.env`
-3. **A working base setup** — run `hermes` to verify the agent responds to text before enabling voice
-:::tip
-The `~/.hermes/` directory and default `config.yaml` are created automatically the first time you run `hermes`. You only need to create `~/.hermes/.env` manually for API keys.
-:::
-:::tip Nous Portal covers both
-A paid [Nous Portal](/user-guide/features/tool-gateway) subscription supplies the LLM (step 2) **and** OpenAI TTS via the Tool Gateway — no separate OpenAI key needed. On a fresh install, `hermes setup --portal` wires both up at once.
-:::
-## Overview
-| Feature | Platform | Description |
-|---------|----------|-------------|
-| **Interactive Voice** | CLI | Press Ctrl+B to record, agent auto-detects silence and responds |
-| **Auto Voice Reply** | Telegram, Discord | Agent sends spoken audio alongside text responses |
-| **Voice Channel** | Discord | Bot joins VC, listens to users speaking, speaks replies back |
-## Requirements
-### Python Packages
-```bash
-# CLI voice mode (microphone + audio playback)
-cd ~/.hermes/hermes-agent && uv pip install -e ".[voice]"
-# Discord + Telegram messaging (includes discord.py[voice] for VC support)
-cd ~/.hermes/hermes-agent && uv pip install -e ".[messaging]"
-# Premium TTS (ElevenLabs)
-cd ~/.hermes/hermes-agent && uv pip install -e ".[tts-premium]"
-# Local TTS (NeuTTS, optional)
-python -m pip install -U neutts[all]
-# Everything at once
-cd ~/.hermes/hermes-agent && uv pip install -e ".[all]"
-```
-| Extra | Packages | Required For |
-|-------|----------|-------------|
-| `voice` | `sounddevice`, `numpy` | CLI voice mode |
-| `messaging` | `discord.py[voice]`, `python-telegram-bot`, `aiohttp` | Discord & Telegram bots |
-| `tts-premium` | `elevenlabs` | ElevenLabs TTS provider |
-Optional local TTS provider: install `neutts` separately with `python -m pip install -U neutts[all]`. On first use it downloads the model automatically.
-:::info
-`discord.py[voice]` installs **PyNaCl** (for voice encryption) and **opus bindings** automatically. This is required for Discord voice channel support.
-:::
-### System Dependencies
-```bash
-# macOS
-brew install portaudio ffmpeg opus
-brew install espeak-ng   # for NeuTTS
-# Ubuntu/Debian
-sudo apt install portaudio19-dev ffmpeg libopus0
-sudo apt install espeak-ng   # for NeuTTS
-```
-| Dependency | Purpose | Required For |
-|-----------|---------|-------------|
-| **PortAudio** | Microphone input and audio playback | CLI voice mode |
-| **ffmpeg** | Audio format conversion (MP3 → Opus, PCM → WAV) | All platforms |
-| **Opus** | Discord voice codec | Discord voice channels |
-| **espeak-ng** | Phonemizer backend | Local NeuTTS provider |
-### API Keys
-Add to `~/.hermes/.env`:
-```bash
-# Speech-to-Text — local provider needs NO key at all
-# pip install faster-whisper          # Free, runs locally, recommended
-GROQ_API_KEY=your-key                 # Groq Whisper — fast, free tier (cloud)
-VOICE_TOOLS_OPENAI_KEY=your-key       # OpenAI Whisper — paid (cloud)
-# Text-to-Speech (optional — Edge TTS and NeuTTS work without any key)
-ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=***           # ElevenLabs — premium quality
-# VOICE_TOOLS_OPENAI_KEY above also enables OpenAI TTS
-```
-:::tip
-If `faster-whisper` is installed, voice mode works with **zero API keys** for STT. The model (~150 MB for `base`) downloads automatically on first use.
-:::
-The first download normally comes from `huggingface.co`. If that host is unavailable on your network, export an accessible mirror in the shell or service that starts Hermes:
-```bash
-HF_ENDPOINT=https://your-hugging-face-mirror.example
-HF_HUB_DISABLE_XET=1
-```
-Disabling Xet avoids authentication failures from Xet's separate CAS hosts when a mirror is in use. After the model is cached, Hermes loads that snapshot without an online revision check.
----
-## CLI Voice Mode
-Voice mode is available in both the **classic CLI** (`hermes chat`) and the **TUI** (`hermes --tui`). Behavior is identical across both — same slash commands, same VAD silence detection, same streaming TTS, same hallucination filter. The TUI additionally forwards crash-forensic logs to `~/.hermes/logs/` so push-to-talk failures on exotic audio backends can be reported with a full stack trace rather than disappearing silently.
-### Quick Start
-Start the CLI and enable voice mode:
-```bash
-hermes                # Start the interactive CLI
-```
-Then use these commands inside the CLI:
-```
-/voice          Toggle voice mode on/off
-/voice on       Enable voice mode
-/voice off      Disable voice mode
-/voice tts      Toggle TTS output
-/voice status   Show current state
-```
-### How It Works
-1. Start the CLI with `hermes` and enable voice mode with `/voice on`
-2. **Press Ctrl+B** — a beep plays (880Hz), recording starts
-3. **Speak** — a live audio level bar shows your input: `● [▁▂▃▅▇▇▅▂] ❯`
-4. **Stop speaking** — after 3 seconds of silence, recording auto-stops
-5. **Two beeps** play (660Hz) confirming the recording ended
-6. Audio is transcribed via Whisper and sent to the agent
-7. If TTS is enabled, the agent's reply is spoken aloud
-8. Recording **automatically restarts** — speak again without pressing any key
-This loop continues until you press **Ctrl+B** during recording (exits continuous mode) or 3 consecutive recordings detect no speech.
-:::tip
-The record key is configurable via `voice.record_key` in `~/.hermes/config.yaml` (default: `ctrl+b`).
-:::
-### Silence Detection
-Two-stage algorithm detects when you've finished speaking:
-1. **Speech confirmation** — waits for audio above the RMS threshold (200) for at least 0.3s, tolerating brief dips between syllables
-2. **End detection** — once speech is confirmed, triggers after 3.0 seconds of continuous silence
-If no speech is detected at all for 15 seconds, recording stops automatically.
-Both `silence_threshold` and `silence_duration` are configurable in `config.yaml`. You can also disable the record start/stop beeps with `voice.beep_enabled: false`.
-### Ending a voice chat by voice
-Say **"stop"** — and nothing else — to end the voice conversation hands-free. The match is deliberately strict: the whole utterance (case-insensitive, surrounding punctuation ignored) must equal a configured phrase, so "stop doing that and try X instead" still reaches the agent normally. Customize the phrase list with `voice.stop_phrases` in `config.yaml` (e.g. `["stop", "goodbye hermes"]`), or set it to `[]` to disable. A voice chat also ends on its own after three consecutive silent cycles (no speech detected).
-**Typing** a bare stop phrase while a voice chat is active works the same way on every surface (CLI, TUI, desktop): the message ends the voice chat instead of being sent to the agent. Outside a voice chat, typed "stop" is an ordinary message.
-### Streaming TTS
-When TTS is enabled, the agent speaks its reply **sentence-by-sentence** as it generates text — you don't wait for the full response. This works with **every TTS provider**:
-1. Buffers text deltas into complete sentences (min 20 chars)
-2. Strips markdown formatting, emoji, and `<think>` blocks
-3. Plays audio per sentence in real-time — providers with a chunked PCM API (ElevenLabs, OpenAI) stream raw audio for the lowest time-to-first-word; every other provider (including the default Edge) synthesizes and plays each sentence as it completes
-The same pipeline runs in the classic CLI, the TUI, and the desktop app. In a desktop voice conversation the reply text is fed **live** into a per-reply speech WebSocket as the model generates it, so speech overlaps generation — one socket and one audio clock per reply, no per-sentence connection gaps.
-### Desktop remote: client-direct voice (lowest-hop path)
-When Hermes Desktop is connected to a **remote gateway**, audio does not need to be relayed through the gateway at all. At voice-session start the desktop fetches the active profile's resolved STT/TTS settings (provider, model, language/voice, and credential) from the gateway over the authenticated REST channel (`GET /api/audio/voice-config`) and then calls the providers **directly**:
-- **Dictation / voice input:** the mic recording goes straight from your desktop to the profile's STT provider; only the resulting *text* is sent to the gateway as the prompt.
-- **Spoken replies:** the reply text is already streaming to the desktop over the chat socket, so the desktop synthesizes it locally with the profile's TTS provider and plays it — the gateway link never carries audio.
-There is nothing to configure on the client: the profile you're talking to is the single source of truth for providers and keys, exactly as if the gateway had done the work itself. Keys are held in the desktop's memory for the session only — never written to disk on the client.
-Providers that can only run on the gateway host (local whisper, `edge` TTS, command providers, plugins) automatically fall back to the relay path (`/api/audio/transcribe` and the speech WebSocket), as does any older backend without the endpoint. To force the relay for every provider, set:
-```yaml
-voice:
-  client_direct: false
-```
-Client-direct wire support: OpenAI (incl. Nous-managed audio), Groq, Mistral, and DeepInfra via the OpenAI-compatible shapes, xAI Grok STT, and ElevenLabs STT + TTS. xAI configured through OAuth stays on the relay (the OAuth bearer refreshes server-side).
-### Desktop: GPT-Live voice chat mode (full duplex, delegates to Hermes)
-The chained loop above is one of two voice chat modes in the desktop app. The other replaces the whole STT → turn → TTS chain with **one full-duplex voice model**, OpenAI's `gpt-live-1`: it listens while it speaks, handles interruptions, backchannels and background noise itself, and has **no tools of its own**. Whenever you ask for real work it *delegates* to Hermes, which answers as usual — with whatever model and provider the session has selected, the full toolset, memory and approvals — and the voice paraphrases the answer aloud.
-```yaml
-voice:
-  voice_chat_mode: gpt-live     # chained (default) | gpt-live
-  gpt_live:
-    voice: marin                # marin, cedar, quartz, ripple, vesper, willow, stone, gleam, meridian, …
-    instructions: ""            # optional extra persona sentences (tone, pace, language)
-```
-Requirements: an OpenAI API key (`OPENAI_API_KEY`, `VOICE_TOOLS_OPENAI_KEY`, or `voice.gpt_live.api_key`). The voice layer is billed by OpenAI at **$0.05 per minute of session time** (idle time counts); the Hermes turn is billed on its own provider as always. The mode is also in Settings → Voice → *Voice Chat Mode*.
-How it works: pressing the voice button opens a WebRTC session from the desktop to GPT-Live; the desktop only ever receives a session id and an SDP answer — the key stays on the gateway host, which performs the session creation (`POST /api/audio/voice-live/session`). Each `session.delegation.created` becomes a normal turn on the open chat (the bubble shows what you said; the recent spoken exchange rides the model input as a per-turn note, never the system prompt, so the reply is speakable prose). Tool activity is fed to the voice as quiet context ("Hermes is working: terminal") so it can tell you what is happening if you ask; the final answer is streamed back sentence by sentence. Saying the stop phrase ends the conversation. If `gpt-live` is selected but no key resolves, the button falls back to the chained mode with a notice.
-Not supported in this mode: the Nous-managed audio proxy (direct key only), the CLI/TUI (`/voice` keeps the chained loop), and the `tts` tool (it keeps using `tts.provider`).
-### Barge-in
-You can interrupt the agent at ANY point in its turn — the microphone stays live from the moment you finish speaking until the reply has fully played (full duplex):
-- **Interject while it's thinking** — in continuous voice mode, speaking during LLM generation (before any audio plays) interrupts the in-flight turn and your interjection becomes the next message, the same as typing over a running turn.
-- **Talk over it** — speaking while the agent's reply plays cuts playback the moment you start talking and submits what you said. The detector calibrates its noise floor against the *quiet room* at turn start (never against the playback itself), so speaker bleed can't deafen it and normal speech reliably trips it.
-- **Type or press the record key** — sending a new message or hitting the push-to-talk key stops playback instantly on every surface.
-- **Say "stop"** — the stop phrase works in both phases: mid-generation it interrupts the turn AND ends the voice chat; mid-playback it cuts the speech and ends the chat.
-Tuning (config.yaml): `voice.barge_in: false` disables it; `voice.barge_in_threshold_multiplier` (default `3.0`) scales the speech trigger over the quiet-room floor; `voice.barge_in_grace_seconds` (default `0.5`) suppresses trips right after playback starts. Set `HERMES_VOICE_DEBUG=1` to stream per-block VAD diagnostics (calibrated floor, RMS, trip decisions) to stderr for live tuning.
-The agent **knows** it was interrupted: the next message carries a short note telling the model its spoken reply was cut off, so it can react naturally ("rude!") or pick up where it left off instead of being oblivious.
-### Hallucination Filter
-Whisper sometimes generates phantom text from silence or background noise ("Thank you for watching", "Subscribe", etc.). The agent filters these out using a set of 26 known hallucination phrases across multiple languages, plus a regex pattern that catches repetitive variations.
----
-## Gateway Voice Reply (Telegram & Discord)
-If you haven't set up your messaging bots yet, see the platform-specific guides:
-- [Telegram Setup Guide](../messaging/telegram.md)
-- [Discord Setup Guide](../messaging/discord.md)
-Start the gateway to connect to your messaging platforms:
-```bash
-hermes gateway        # Start the gateway (connects to configured platforms)
-hermes gateway setup  # Interactive setup wizard for first-time configuration
-```
-### Discord: Channels vs DMs
-The bot supports two interaction modes on Discord:
-| Mode | How to Talk | Mention Required | Setup |
-|------|------------|-----------------|-------|
-| **Direct Message (DM)** | Open the bot's profile → "Message" | No | Works immediately |
-| **Server Channel** | Type in a text channel where the bot is present | Yes (`@botname`) | Bot must be invited to the server |
-**DM (recommended for personal use):** Just open a DM with the bot and type — no @mention needed. Voice replies and all commands work the same as in channels.
-**Server channels:** The bot only responds when you @mention it (e.g. `@hermesbyt4 hello`). Make sure you select the **bot user** from the mention popup, not the role with the same name.
-:::tip
-To disable the mention requirement in server channels, add to `~/.hermes/.env`:
-```bash
-DISCORD_REQUIRE_MENTION=false
-```
-Or set specific channels as free-response (no mention needed):
-```bash
-DISCORD_FREE_RESPONSE_CHANNELS=123456789,987654321
-```
-:::
-### Commands
-These work in both Telegram and Discord (DMs and text channels):
-```
-/voice          Toggle voice mode on/off
-/voice on       Voice replies only when you send a voice message
-/voice tts      Voice replies for ALL messages
-/voice off      Disable voice replies
-/voice status   Show current setting
-```
-### Modes
-| Mode | Command | Behavior |
-|------|---------|----------|
-| `off` | `/voice off` | Text only (default) |
-| `voice_only` | `/voice on` | Speaks reply only when you send a voice message |
-| `all` | `/voice tts` | Speaks reply to every message |
-Voice mode setting is persisted across gateway restarts.
-### Platform Delivery
-| Platform | Format | Notes |
-|----------|--------|-------|
-| **Telegram** | Voice bubble (Opus/OGG) | Plays inline in chat. ffmpeg converts MP3 → Opus if needed |
-| **Discord** | Native voice bubble (Opus/OGG) | Plays inline like a user voice message. Falls back to file attachment if voice bubble API fails |
----
-## Discord Voice Channels
-The most immersive voice feature: the bot joins a Discord voice channel, listens to users speaking, transcribes their speech, processes through the agent, and speaks the reply back in the voice channel.
-### Setup
-#### 1. Discord Bot Permissions
-If you already have a Discord bot set up for text (see [Discord Setup Guide](../messaging/discord.md)), you need to add voice permissions.
-Go to the [Discord Developer Portal](https://discord.com/developers/applications) → your application → **Installation** → **Default Install Settings** → **Guild Install**:
-**Add these permissions to the existing text permissions:**
-| Permission | Purpose | Required |
-|-----------|---------|----------|
-| **Connect** | Join voice channels | Yes |
-| **Speak** | Play TTS audio in voice channels | Yes |
-| **Use Voice Activity** | Detect when users are speaking | Recommended |
-**Updated Permissions Integer:**
-| Level | Integer | What's Included |
-|-------|---------|----------------|
-| Text only | `309237763136` | View Channels, Send Messages, Read History, Embeds, Attachments, Threads, Reactions, Create Public Threads |
-| Text + Voice | `309240908864` | All above + Connect, Speak |
-**Re-invite the bot** with the updated permissions URL:
-```
-https://discord.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=YOUR_APP_ID&scope=bot+applications.commands&permissions=309240908864
-```
-Replace `YOUR_APP_ID` with your Application ID from the Developer Portal.
-:::warning
-Re-inviting the bot to a server it's already in will update its permissions without removing it. You won't lose any data or configuration.
-:::
-#### 2. Privileged Gateway Intents
-In the [Developer Portal](https://discord.com/developers/applications) → your application → **Bot** → **Privileged Gateway Intents**, enable all three:
-| Intent | Purpose |
-|--------|---------|
-| **Presence Intent** | Detect user online/offline status |
-| **Server Members Intent** | Resolve usernames in `DISCORD_ALLOWED_USERS` to numeric IDs (conditional) |
-| **Message Content Intent** | Read text message content in channels |
-**Message Content Intent** is required. **Server Members Intent** is only needed if your `DISCORD_ALLOWED_USERS` list uses usernames — if you use numeric user IDs, you can leave it OFF. Voice-channel SSRC → user_id mapping comes from Discord's SPEAKING opcode on the voice websocket and does **not** require the Server Members Intent.
-#### 3. Opus Codec
-The Opus codec library must be installed on the machine running the gateway:
-```bash
-# macOS (Homebrew)
-brew install opus
-# Ubuntu/Debian
-sudo apt install libopus0
-```
-The bot auto-loads the codec from:
-- **macOS:** `/opt/homebrew/lib/libopus.dylib`
-- **Linux:** `libopus.so.0`
-#### 4. Environment Variables
-```bash
-# ~/.hermes/.env
-# Discord bot (already configured for text)
-DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN=your-bot-token
-DISCORD_ALLOWED_USERS=your-user-id
-# STT — local provider needs no key (pip install faster-whisper)
-# GROQ_API_KEY=your-key            # Alternative: cloud-based, fast, free tier
-# TTS — optional. Edge TTS and NeuTTS need no key.
-# ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=***      # Premium quality
-# VOICE_TOOLS_OPENAI_KEY=***  # OpenAI TTS / Whisper
-```
-### Start the Gateway
-```bash
-hermes gateway        # Start with existing configuration
-```
-The bot should come online in Discord within a few seconds.
-### Commands
-Use these in the Discord text channel where the bot is present:
-```
-/voice join      Bot joins your current voice channel
-/voice channel   Alias for /voice join
-/voice leave     Bot disconnects from voice channel
-/voice status    Show voice mode and connected channel
-```
-:::info
-You must be in a voice channel before running `/voice join`. The bot joins the same VC you're in.
-:::
-### How It Works
-When the bot joins a voice channel, it:
-1. **Listens** to each user's audio stream independently
-2. **Detects silence** — 1.5s of silence after at least 0.5s of speech triggers processing
-3. **Transcribes** the audio via Whisper STT (local, Groq, or OpenAI)
-4. **Processes** through the full agent pipeline (session, tools, memory)
-5. **Speaks** the reply back in the voice channel via TTS
-### Text Channel Integration
-When the bot is in a voice channel:
-- Transcripts appear in the text channel: `[Voice] @user: what you said`
-- Agent responses are sent as text in the channel AND spoken in the VC
-- The text channel is the one where `/voice join` was issued
-### Echo Prevention
-The bot automatically pauses its audio listener while playing TTS replies, preventing it from hearing and re-processing its own output.
-### Access Control
-Only users listed in `DISCORD_ALLOWED_USERS` can interact via voice. Other users' audio is silently ignored.
-```bash
-# ~/.hermes/.env
-DISCORD_ALLOWED_USERS=284102345871466496
-```
----
-## Configuration Reference
-### config.yaml
-```yaml
-# Voice recording (CLI)
-voice:
-  record_key: "ctrl+b"            # Key to start/stop recording
-  max_recording_seconds: 120       # Maximum recording length
-  auto_tts: false                  # Auto-enable TTS when voice mode starts
-  beep_enabled: true               # Play record start/stop beeps
-  silence_threshold: 200           # RMS level (0-32767) below which counts as silence
-  silence_duration: 3.0            # Seconds of silence before auto-stop
-  stop_phrases: ["stop"]           # Saying exactly one of these ends the voice chat; [] disables
-# Speech-to-Text
-stt:
-  enabled: true                     # set to false to skip auto-transcription —
-                                    # the gateway still caches the audio file and
-                                    # passes its path to the agent as part of the
-                                    # inbound message, useful for custom pipelines
-                                    # (diarization, alignment, archival, etc.)
-  provider: "local"                  # "local" (free) | "groq" | "openai" | "mistral" | "xai"
-  local:
-    model: "base"                    # tiny, base, small, medium, large-v3
-    language: ""                     # optional ISO-639-1 hint; blank = use HERMES_LOCAL_STT_LANGUAGE if set, else auto-detect
-  groq:
-    language: ""                     # optional ISO-639-1 hint; blank = use HERMES_LOCAL_STT_LANGUAGE if set, else auto-detect
-  # model: "whisper-1"              # Legacy: used when provider is not set
-# Text-to-Speech
-tts:
-  provider: "edge"                 # "edge" (free) | "elevenlabs" | "openai" | "neutts" | "minimax" | "mistral" | "gemini" | "xai" | "kittentts" | "piper"
-  edge:
-    voice: "en-US-AriaNeural"      # 322 voices, 74 languages
-  elevenlabs:
-    voice_id: "pNInz6obpgDQGcFmaJgB"    # Adam
-    model_id: "eleven_multilingual_v2"
-  openai:
-    model: "gpt-4o-mini-tts"
-    voice: "alloy"                 # alloy, echo, fable, onyx, nova, shimmer
-    base_url: "https://api.openai.com/v1"  # optional: override for self-hosted or OpenAI-compatible endpoints
-    # The `text_to_speech` tool accepts an optional per-call `instructions`
-    # argument (tone, emotion, pacing, accent, whispering) that is forwarded
-    # to `gpt-4o-mini-tts` and to OpenAI-compatible voice-design servers
-    # (e.g. Qwen3-TTS-VoiceDesign via oMLX). See OpenAI's voice-design guide:
-    # https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/text-to-speech
-  neutts:
-    ref_audio: ''
-    ref_text: ''
-    model: neuphonic/neutts-air-q4-gguf
-    device: cpu
-```
-### Environment Variables
-```bash
-# Speech-to-Text providers (local needs no key)
-# pip install faster-whisper        # Free local STT — no API key needed
-GROQ_API_KEY=...                    # Groq Whisper (fast, free tier)
-VOICE_TOOLS_OPENAI_KEY=...         # OpenAI Whisper (paid)
-# STT advanced overrides (optional)
-STT_GROQ_MODEL=whisper-large-v3-turbo    # Override default Groq STT model
-STT_OPENAI_MODEL=whisper-1               # Override default OpenAI STT model
-GROQ_BASE_URL=https://api.groq.com/openai/v1     # Custom Groq endpoint
-STT_OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://api.openai.com/v1    # Custom OpenAI STT endpoint
-# Text-to-Speech providers (Edge TTS and NeuTTS need no key)
-ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=***             # ElevenLabs (premium quality)
-# VOICE_TOOLS_OPENAI_KEY above also enables OpenAI TTS
-# Discord voice channel
-DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN=...
-DISCORD_ALLOWED_USERS=...
-```
-### STT Provider Comparison
-| Provider | Model | Speed | Quality | Cost | API Key |
-|----------|-------|-------|---------|------|---------|
-| **Local** | `base` | Fast (depends on CPU/GPU) | Good | Free | No |
-| **Local** | `small` | Medium | Better | Free | No |
-| **Local** | `large-v3` | Slow | Best | Free | No |
-| **Groq** | `whisper-large-v3-turbo` | Very fast (~0.5s) | Good | Free tier | Yes |
-| **Groq** | `whisper-large-v3` | Fast (~1s) | Better | Free tier | Yes |
-| **OpenAI** | `whisper-1` | Fast (~1s) | Good | Paid | Yes |
-| **OpenAI** | `gpt-4o-transcribe` | Medium (~2s) | Best | Paid | Yes |
-| **OpenAI** | `gpt-transcribe` | Fast | Best | Paid ($0.0045/min) | Yes |
-| **Mistral** | `voxtral-mini-latest` | Fast | Good | Paid | Yes |
-| **xAI** | `grok-stt` | Fast | Good | Paid | Yes |
-Provider priority (automatic fallback): **local** > **groq** > **openai**
-### TTS Provider Comparison
-| Provider | Quality | Cost | Latency | Key Required |
-|----------|---------|------|---------|-------------|
-| **Edge TTS** | Good | Free | ~1s | No |
-| **ElevenLabs** | Excellent | Paid | ~2s | Yes |
-| **OpenAI TTS** | Good | Paid | ~1.5s | Yes |
-| **NeuTTS** | Good | Free | Depends on CPU/GPU | No |
-NeuTTS uses the `tts.neutts` config block above.
-For `openai`, the `text_to_speech` tool accepts an optional `instructions`
-argument that unlocks `gpt-4o-mini-tts`'s voice-design capability (tone,
-emotion, pacing, accent, whispering). The same field also routes to
-OpenAI-compatible voice-design servers mounted via `tts.openai.base_url`
-(e.g. Qwen3-TTS-VoiceDesign via oMLX).
----
-## Troubleshooting
-### "No audio device found" (CLI)
-PortAudio is not installed:
-```bash
-brew install portaudio    # macOS
-sudo apt install portaudio19-dev  # Ubuntu
-```
-If you are running Hermes inside Docker on a Linux desktop, the container also needs access to your host audio socket. See the [Docker audio bridge](/user-guide/docker#optional-linux-desktop-audio-bridge) notes for a PulseAudio/PipeWire-compatible setup.
-### Bot doesn't respond in Discord server channels
-The bot requires an @mention by default in server channels. Make sure you:
-1. Type `@` and select the **bot user** (with the #discriminator), not the **role** with the same name
-2. Or use DMs instead — no mention needed
-3. Or set `DISCORD_REQUIRE_MENTION=false` in `~/.hermes/.env`
-### Bot joins VC but doesn't hear me
-- Check your Discord user ID is in `DISCORD_ALLOWED_USERS`
-- Make sure you're not muted in Discord
-- The bot needs a SPEAKING event from Discord before it can map your audio — start speaking within a few seconds of joining
-### Bot hears me but doesn't respond
-- Verify STT is available: install `faster-whisper` (no key needed) or set `GROQ_API_KEY` / `VOICE_TOOLS_OPENAI_KEY`
-- Check the LLM model is configured and accessible
-- Review gateway logs: `tail -f ~/.hermes/logs/gateway.log`
-### Bot responds in text but not in voice channel
-- TTS provider may be failing — check API key and quota
-- Edge TTS (free, no key) is the default fallback
-- Check logs for TTS errors
-### Whisper returns garbage text
-The hallucination filter catches most cases automatically. If you're still getting phantom transcripts:
-- Use a quieter environment
-- Adjust `silence_threshold` in config (higher = less sensitive)
-- Try a different STT model