Voice Messages for VS Code

Add voice comments to your code — Record audio messages and attach them directly to lines in your codebase. Perfect for async code reviews, explaining complex logic, onboarding new team members, or leaving yourself detailed notes.

Why Voice Messages?

Decentralized — No servers, no accounts, no API keys. Everything runs locally on your machine.
Git-Friendly — Audio files are stored in your repository. Commit them alongside your code and share with your team.
Works Without the Extension — Teammates can play the MP3 files directly from the .voice-messages/audio/ folder, even without VS Code or this extension installed.
Zero Configuration — Just install FFmpeg and start recording. No setup required.

Features

Quick Recording — Start recording from the status bar or command palette
Optional Titles — Add descriptive titles to your voice messages
Inline Playback — Play messages directly from CodeLens buttons in the editor
Keyboard Shortcut — Toggle recording with Ctrl+Shift+V (Mac: Cmd+Shift+V)
Language-Aware Markers — Automatically uses the correct comment syntax for 60+ languages
Clean Display — UUIDs are hidden, showing only the title or timestamp

Prerequisites

FFmpeg (Required)

This extension requires FFmpeg to be installed on your system for audio recording.

Windows

winget install ffmpeg

Or download from gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds

macOS

brew install ffmpeg

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

sudo apt install ffmpeg

Linux (Fedora)

sudo dnf install ffmpeg

Linux (Arch)

sudo pacman -S ffmpeg

After installation, verify FFmpeg is available by running ffmpeg -version in your terminal.

Installation

Open VS Code
Go to Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X)
Search for "Voice Messages"
Click Install

Or install from the command line:

code --install-extension voice-messages

Usage

Recording a Voice Message

Place your cursor where you want to attach the voice message
Click the Voice button in the status bar, or:
- Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V (Mac: Cmd+Shift+V)
- Run "Voice Messages: Start Recording" from the Command Palette Ctrl+Shift+P
Optionally enter a title for the message
Speak your message
Click the status bar again, just press enter, or run "Stop Recording" to save

A comment marker will be inserted at your cursor position:

// 🎤 voice:019ad2b8-a0bb-710a-9ebf-7022cea015be
function complexAlgorithm() {
    // Your code here
}

The UUID is automatically hidden and replaced with the title or timestamp.

Playing Voice Messages

Click ▶️ Load Voice Message on any marker line
The audio player appears in the Explorer sidebar
Use space/enter to play/pause, or manually click the play button to play
Use the timeline to seek within the message

Deleting Voice Messages

Click 🗑️ Delete on the marker line
Confirms before deleting the audio file and removing the marker

Selecting Audio Device

Run "Voice Messages: Select Audio Device" to choose a specific microphone.

Extension Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`voice-messages.audioDevice`	`auto`	Audio input device. Set to `auto` for system default
`voice-messages.audioCodec`	`libmp3lame`	Audio codec (libmp3lame, aac, libvorbis, flac)
`voice-messages.audioBitrate`	`64k`	Recording bitrate (32k-192k). 64k recommended for voice

Commands

Command	Description
Voice Messages: Start Recording	Begin recording a voice message
Voice Messages: Stop Recording	Stop and save the current recording
Voice Messages: Cancel Recording	Stop recording without saving
Voice Messages: Toggle Recording	Start or stop recording
Voice Messages: Select Audio Device	Choose audio input device
Voice Messages: Remove Orphaned Marker	Remove a marker with missing audio
Voice Messages: Delete Unreferenced Audio Files	Clean up orphaned audio files

Voice messages are stored in .voice-messages/ at your workspace root:

.voice-messages/
├── index.json    # Message metadata
└── audio/        # MP3 audio files

Commit the .voice-messages/ folder to Git to share voice messages with your team:

Teammates with the extension get the full inline experience
Teammates without the extension can still play the MP3 files directly from the audio/ folder
Works with any Git hosting (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, etc.)

Keeping Messages Private

Add .voice-messages/ to your .gitignore if you want to keep recordings local.

Supported Languages

Voice message markers work with 60+ languages including: JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Rust, Java, C/C++, C#, PHP, Swift, Kotlin, HTML, CSS, SQL, Shell scripts, YAML, Markdown, and many more.

Known Issues

Recording requires FFmpeg to be in your system PATH
Audio playback being from the webview forces user to interact with it before playing audio e.g. can't directly play the sound from the editor interaction with the inline buttons.

Release Notes

See CHANGELOG.md for release history.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

MIT

Voice Messages

snowyball