use-local-whisper

Local voice transcription requires whisper.cpp and ffmpeg installed on your Apple Silicon machine. You must also apply the voice-transcription skill beforehand to enable the agent to route audio processing to the local whisper.cpp execution environment.

Yes, offline audio transcription without an OpenAI Whisper API key is possible by running whisper.cpp directly on Apple Silicon. This approach processes voice notes entirely on-device, ensuring privacy and eliminating network dependencies or API costs.

Local voice transcription with whisper.cpp operates entirely offline on Apple Silicon devices. It requires no network connection or API keys, executing all audio-to-text conversion directly on your hardware to maintain data privacy and reduce operational costs.

The best way to avoid API costs for private voice transcription is switching from the OpenAI Whisper API to whisper.cpp on Apple Silicon. This local approach processes audio entirely on-device, ensuring complete data privacy while eliminating per-usage API fees.

You need to apply the voice-transcription skill first because it establishes the base audio processing pipeline. The local whisper integration then modifies this existing pipeline to route transcription tasks to whisper.cpp on Apple Silicon instead of the default OpenAI API.