Tts setup

claude-tts — First-Run Setup

First-run setup for the claude-tts plugin, invoked by /tts:setup. It is idempotent and re-runnable; /tts:doctor re-checks health anytime.

Fail-stop contract: run the steps in order. After each step, verify it succeeded. If a step cannot complete, report which step failed and the single most likely remediation, then STOP — do not continue past a failed step. Never hardcode absolute personal paths; the config dir is ~/.config/claude-tts and the socket is ${CLAUDE_TTS_SOCKET:-${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR:-/tmp}/claude-tts.sock}.

Let ROOT = the plugin/daemon root (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} when invoked as a plugin). Run all Python through the project's uv venv: uv run python ....

Step 1 — Detect platform + architecture

Run uname -s (Darwin/Linux) and uname -m (arm64/x86_64). Record both. On Darwin+arm64 the machine is Apple Silicon (Kokoro is available). Background service install is automated on both platforms (launchd on macOS, systemd --user on Linux); Step 7 falls back to a manual launch only when no systemd user session is present.

Step 2 — Ensure uv + environment

If command -v uv fails, install it: curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh. Then create the env and install deps from ROOT: uv sync --extra edge (this project is a uv-managed application — its dependencies live in pyproject.toml and the default edge-tts engine is the edge extra; there is no requirements.txt). Verify uv run python -c "import edge_tts" succeeds. Remediation on failure: ensure network access and that ~/.local/bin is on PATH.

Step 3 — Choose the speech engine

Default: edge-tts (cross-platform, no ML deps). If Apple Silicon, offer Kokoro (uv run python -c "import mlx_audio" to check; the MLX model pulls on first use). If a Voicebox app is reachable at its configured URL, offer voicebox. Record the chosen engine and a default voice_name (en-US-AvaNeural for edge-tts).

If no ML engine is available and uv sync --extra edge cannot install edge-tts (e.g. offline), choose say (macOS) / espeak (Linux) — the zero-dependency system engine. It always produces audio on a bare machine (using the OS default voice; voice_name is ignored for this engine).

Step 4 — Choose voice assignment preferences

Ask how voices should be assigned:

1. Per project — deterministic varying voices by project (current behavior).
2. Shared — the same voice.name for every project (old behavior).

Record project_voice_scope as per_project or shared.

Then gather voice gender preference in at most two short questions. First ask:

1. Balanced — equal female/male probability.
2. Female voices.
3. Male voices.

If the user chooses female or male voices, ask whether that gender is Only (locked 100/0) or Mostly (preferred 80/20). This produces the five supported outcomes without an oversized option list.

Record voice_gender_preference exactly as one of balanced, female_only, male_only, female_preferred, or male_preferred.

Only edge-tts and kokoro have bundled gender metadata, so they can enforce per-project and gender policy. For say, espeak, and voicebox, explain that setup will keep a shared voice because portable gender/per-project assignment is not enforceable for that engine in this plugin build.

Changing the generated pool can remap existing project-to-voice assignments. Tell the user a daemon restart is required after changing these preferences.

Step 5 — Choose the LLM backend

Default: local Ollama with model qwen2.5-coder:1.5b. Offer to pull it: ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:1.5b (skip if ollama list already shows it). Alternatively, an OpenAI-compatible endpoint (collect base_url + model; read the API key from an environment variable the user names — never store the raw key in shell history). Or none (deterministic mode). Record backend ∈ ollama/openai/null.

Step 6 — Calibrate against the mini-eval

Run the calibration gate for the chosen backend: uv run python scripts/calibrate.py --backend <backend> [--model <m>] [--base-url <url>] [--api-key-env <ENVVAR>] --json It prints {"mode": "smart"|"deterministic", ...}. If mode == "smart", keep the chosen backend. If mode == "deterministic" (model unreachable or below the precision/recall bar), warn the user that the LLM under-performed its own deterministic floor and set backend = null for the config — TTS still works, just rule-based. The null backend skips scoring and is deterministic by definition.

Step 7 — Install the OS service + start the daemon

Compute the launcher: PYTHON = ROOT/.venv/bin/python, program_args = [PYTHON, "-m", "daemon.tts_daemon"], env = {"PYTHONUNBUFFERED": "1", "PYTHONPATH": ROOT, "PATH": <current PATH>}. (PYTHONPATH=ROOT lets -m daemon.tts_daemon resolve the package regardless of the service's working directory — required for systemd --user, harmless for launchd.)

macOS — install and start via the platform seam: uv run python -c "from daemon.platforms import make_platform; make_platform().install_service(program_args=[...], env={...})". This writes ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.claude-tts.daemon.plist and launchctl bootstraps it. Linux — install and start via the same platform seam: uv run python -c "from daemon.platforms import make_platform; make_platform().install_service(program_args=[...], env={...})". This renders ~/.config/systemd/user/claude-tts.service, then runs systemctl --user daemon-reload, systemctl --user enable --now claude-tts.service, and loginctl enable-linger (so the daemon survives logout/reboot). If systemctl is absent (no systemd user session), the seam raises a clear message — fall back to starting the daemon manually (uv run python -m daemon.tts_daemon &).

Verify the socket binds at ${CLAUDE_TTS_SOCKET:-${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR:-/tmp}/claude-tts.sock}. Remediation on failure: check /tmp/claude-tts-daemon.err.log.

Step 8 — Write the config + verify

Write ~/.config/claude-tts/config.json (read any API key from the env var you named in Step 5 — never inline the raw key): uv run python -c "import os; from daemon.config_io import render_config, write_config; write_config(render_config(engine='<engine>', voice_name='<voice>', backend='<backend>', model='<model>', base_url='<url>', api_key=os.environ.get('<KEY_ENV>', ''), project_voice_scope='<project_voice_scope>', voice_gender_preference='<voice_gender_preference>'))". Then run the /tts:doctor checks (disk, daemon+socket, deps, backend reachability) and play one test utterance to confirm audio. Report the overall verdict. If doctor reports any WARN, surface it with its remediation.