captions

Real-time audio transcription overlay for Sway. Captures audio via PipeWire, transcribes with whisper.cpp, displays as a transparent Wayland overlay.

Dependencies

• Nim >= 2.0
• libpipewire-0.3-dev
• libgtk-4-dev
• libgtk4-layer-shell-dev
• whisper.cpp (built and installed from source)

Build & Install

make install-all

This compiles, installs to ~/.local/bin/, downloads the whisper model, copies config, and installs a systemd user service.

Individual steps: make install, make install-model, make install-config, make install-service.

Usage

captions              # start daemon
captions toggle       # start/stop capture
captions status       # query daemon state
captions quit         # shut down daemon

Sway config

exec systemctl --user import-environment WAYLAND_DISPLAY XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
exec systemctl --user start captions
bindsym $mod+c exec captions toggle

Configuration

~/.config/captions/captions.toml — see config/captions.toml.example for all options.

Key setting: [audio] source = "sink" for system audio, "mic" for microphone input.