Voice Transcriber

A VS Code extension that records your voice and transcribes it using OpenAI Whisper or a local Whisper-compatible API. Can optionally clean up the text with an LLM.

Features

• Record audio directly in VS Code with real-time visualization
• Transcribe via OpenAI Whisper or your own local server
• Clean up filler words and fix punctuation with LLM (optional)
• Keep your last 10 transcriptions
• Auto-copy results to clipboard
• Recover recordings if VS Code crashes

Recording tools Installation (recommended)

The extension works best with audio utilities installed. Without them, it falls back to browser-based recording.

Linux:

sudo apt install alsa-utils
# or
sudo apt install sox libsox-fmt-all

macOS:

brew install sox

Windows:

choco install sox.portable

Usage

1. Click the microphone icon in the top-right of your editor
2. Set up your provider (OpenAI or local)
3. Hit "Start Recording" and speak
4. Hit "Stop" — text is automatically copied to clipboard

Configuration

OpenAI

Get an API key from platform.openai.com/api-keys, select "OpenAI" as provider, paste your key, and save.

Local server

Any Whisper-compatible API works:

• faster-whisper-server
• whisper.cpp server
• Anything with a /v1/audio/transcriptions endpoint

Just enter the URL, e.g. http://localhost:8000/v1/audio/transcriptions.

LLM text cleanup

When using OpenAI, you can enable "Clean up text with LLM" to remove filler words, fix punctuation, and add paragraph breaks.

Models available: gpt-4o-mini (default, cheapest), gpt-4o, gpt-4-turbo, gpt-3.5-turbo.

Languages

Auto-detect or pick manually: English, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and more.

Troubleshooting

Microphone access denied

macOS: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → enable VS Code → restart VS Code

Windows: Settings → Privacy → Microphone → allow app access

Linux: Check PulseAudio/PipeWire settings with pavucontrol, make sure no other app is blocking the mic

How to check logs

Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P) → "Developer: Open Webview Developer Tools" → pick Voice Transcriber → Console tab

Transcription fails

• Check your API key
• For local API — make sure the server is running and URL is correct
• Check your internet connection

Large files

Recordings over 25MB are automatically split into chunks.

Privacy

• API keys are stored in VS Code's secure storage (system keychain)
• Audio goes directly to OpenAI or your local API
• Nothing is saved to disk

For Developers

Setup

npm install
npm run compile

Press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host.

Commands

npm run compile   # build once
npm run watch     # rebuild on changes

Publishing to VS Code Marketplace

Prerequisites

1. Microsoft account — account.microsoft.com
2. Azure DevOps org — dev.azure.com
3. Publisher ID — marketplace.visualstudio.com/manage

Get a Personal Access Token (PAT)

1. Go to dev.azure.com → profile → Personal access tokens → New Token
2. Organization: All accessible organizations
3. Scopes: Custom defined → Marketplace → Manage
4. Copy the token (shown only once)

Update package.json

{
  "publisher": "your-publisher-id",
  "icon": "resources/icon.png"
}

Icon must be a 128×128 PNG.

Publish

npm install -g @vscode/vsce
vsce login your-publisher-id
vsce publish

Update version

vsce publish patch  # 0.1.0 → 0.1.1
vsce publish minor  # 0.1.0 → 0.2.0
vsce publish major  # 0.1.0 → 1.0.0

Other useful commands

vsce package                      # create .vsix without publishing
vsce show publisher.extension     # show extension info
vsce unpublish publisher.ext      # remove from marketplace

License

MIT