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# Parley
Parley is a planned local GNOME/Wayland dictation tool built around the Parakeet transcription runtime. It will provide a per-user D-Bus daemon, global shortcut, GNOME top-bar extension, transcript history, and tiered text insertion through IBus, clipboard, or an opt-in portal paste backend.
See [SPEC.md](SPEC.md) for the architecture, delivery phases, insertion experiments, and acceptance criteria.
## Status
Phase 1 is underway. The repository now contains a terminal-independent Python core for FFmpeg recording, JSONL transcription, and atomic transcript persistence, plus a standalone terminal frontend. The daemon, D-Bus API, clipboard integration, and GNOME extension are not implemented yet.
## Development environment
The initial target is Arch Linux with GNOME 50 on Wayland. Expected host dependencies include:
- Python 3 and PyGObject
- GNOME Shell and `gnome-extensions`
- IBus
- PipeWire/WirePlumber with PulseAudio compatibility
- FFmpeg
- systemd user services
- XDG Desktop Portal and GNOME's portal backend
- libei/EIS development bindings for the portal-paste experiment
The existing runtime assets are currently located at:
```text
../transcribe-parakeet/bin/transcribe-cli
../transcribe-parakeet/models/parakeet-unified-en-0.6b-Q8_0.gguf
```
That binary presently requires host CUDA 13 and Intel MKL libraries. Do not copy the large model into this Git repository; development configuration should reference its existing path.
## Current developer usage
Create an environment and install the development checkout:
```bash
cd ../parley
python -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install -e .
```
Run the standalone frontend (Enter stops and transcribes; Escape cancels):
```bash
parley
```
By default it uses the runtime and model in `../transcribe-parakeet` and saves under `$XDG_DATA_HOME/parley/transcripts` (normally `~/.local/share/parley/transcripts`). Development paths can be overridden with:
- `PARLEY_FFMPEG`
- `PARLEY_TRANSCRIBE_CLI`
- `PARLEY_MODEL`
- `PARLEY_TRANSCRIPT_DIR`
- `PARLEY_DEVICE`
- `PARLEY_LANGUAGE`
Run tests without desktop, microphone, or model dependencies:
```bash
python -m unittest discover -s tests
```
Commands such as `parleyctl` and daemon startup will be documented when Phase 2 lands.
## Planned first milestone
1. Extract recording, transcription, and persistence from the TTY frontend.
2. Preserve a standalone CLI using the shared core.
3. Add automated tests that do not require GNOME, a microphone, or the model.
4. Implement the user daemon, D-Bus interface, and `parleyctl toggle` workflow.
## Design principles
- Local-only transcription
- Never lose a successful transcript because insertion failed
- Keep model/audio work outside GNOME Shell
- Respect Wayland's security model
- Use IBus only if the passthrough/activation feasibility tests prove reliable
- Keep clipboard-only operation as the safe fallback
- Make synthetic portal paste explicit and revocable
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