whis

Speak. Paste. Ship.

Your voice, piped to clipboard.

Get Started GitHub

What is whis?

A minimal CLI that pipes your voice straight to the clipboard.

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One command Run whis. Speak. Done.
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Whisper-powered OpenAI's Whisper API does the heavy lifting
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Straight to clipboard Ready to paste wherever you need it
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Hotkey mode Ctrl+Shift+R toggles recording from anywhere
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X11 & Wayland Works where you work
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Single binary No runtime dependencies. No bloat.

whis demo: run whis command, speak, press Enter, text is copied to clipboard — Record → Transcribe → Paste

Quick Start

# 1. Set your API key
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

# 2. Record and transcribe
whis

# 3. Press Enter to stop — text is copied!

Download Whis_*_amd64.AppImage → GitHub Releases

chmod +x Whis_*_amd64.AppImage && ./Whis_*_amd64.AppImage --install

Then launch "Whis" from your app menu. This enables global shortcuts.

Download Whis_*_amd64.deb → GitHub Releases

sudo apt install ./Whis_*_amd64.deb

Download Whis-*.x86_64.rpm → GitHub Releases

sudo dnf install ./Whis-*.x86_64.rpm

What is Whis Desktop?

A system tray app that brings voice-to-text to your entire desktop.

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System tray Lives in your panel, always ready
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Global hotkey Ctrl+Shift+R from anywhere (configurable)
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Whisper-powered Same OpenAI transcription engine
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Wayland & X11 Works on modern Linux desktops
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Auto-copied Text goes straight to your clipboard

Whis system tray icon on Linux desktop — System tray

Whis home screen with Start Recording button — System tray

Quick Start

# 1. Download and install the AppImage
chmod +x Whis_*_amd64.AppImage
./Whis_*_amd64.AppImage --install

# 2. Launch "Whis" from your app menu

# 3. Click the tray icon → Settings → Add your API key

# 4. Use Ctrl+Shift+R or the tray menu to record!

FAQ

CLI if you live in the terminal and want voice-to-text in your shell workflow. Desktop if you want a system-wide hotkey that works from any app.
An OpenAI API key and a mic. The CLI also needs FFmpeg installed.
Run whis listen to start the background service. Hit Ctrl+Shift+R to toggle recording from anywhere. Customize with --hotkey.
Goes straight to OpenAI's API. whis doesn't store anything.
Linux only for now. X11 and Wayland both work.
Run ./Whis_*_amd64.AppImage --uninstall to remove the desktop entry and icons. Then delete the AppImage file.
Sometimes you just want to talk to your AI coding assistant without breaking flow.