sayitdev

SayItDev is a command line tool for Mac called dev that runs Apple's on-device Apple Intelligence features locally, covering text to speech, speech to text, live microphone transcription, chat with a local language model, and an OpenAI compatible server, all without sending anything to the cloud or requiring an API key.

The tool offers a handful of simple commands. Running dev with the speak flag converts typed text to spoken audio. The listen flag captures microphone input and returns a transcript, while the transcribe flag does the same for an existing audio file, entirely on the device. Typing a plain prompt after dev sends it to the on-device language model for a response, and the serve flag starts a local HTTP server on port 11434 that exposes OpenAI compatible endpoints for chat completions, text to speech, and transcription, so other apps on the same machine can talk to it like they would talk to a cloud AI service.

Because everything runs locally through Apple Intelligence, it requires macOS 26 or later on an Apple Silicon Mac, with Apple Intelligence enabled for the chat and server features. Installation is done through Homebrew with a short tap and install command, or by building from source with make. Using the microphone or speech recognition features requires granting Terminal.app permission in System Settings, though the transcribe and speak commands only need speech access and no microphone.

SayItDev is a fork of an existing project called apfel, extended by its author to add the voice features. It is aimed at developers who want private, offline AI text and voice tools on their Mac without paying for or depending on a cloud API. It is released under the MIT license.