Voice Mode for Claude Code

Voice Mode for Claude Code allows you to have a continuous two-way conversation with Claude Code, hands-free.

It uses the new Claude Code hooks to deliver voice input to Claude while it works.

This lets you speak continuously to Claude - interrupt, redirect, or provide feedback without stopping what Claude is doing.

Optionally enable text-to-speech to have Claude speak back to you.

Voice recognition and text-to-speech are handled by the browser, so there is nothing to download, and no API keys are needed.

Demo Video

Installation

Installation is easy.

1. Install Claude Code

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

2. Install Voice Mode

npx mcp-voice-hooks@latest install-hooks
claude mcp add voice-hooks npx mcp-voice-hooks@latest

Usage

1. Start Claude Code

claude

2. Start Listening

The browser interface will automatically open after 3 seconds (http://localhost:5111).

Click "Start Listening"

3. Speak

Say something to Claude. You will need to send one message in the Claude Code CLI to start the conversation.

Browser Compatibility

✅ Chrome: Full support for speech recognition, browser text-to-speech, and system text-to-speech
⚠️ Safari: Full support for speech recognition and system text-to-speech, but browser text-to-speech cannot load high-quality voices
❌ Edge: Speech recognition not working on Apple Silicon (language-not-supported error)

Voice responses

There are two options for voice responses:

Browser Text-to-Speech
System Text-to-Speech

Selecting and downloading high quality System Voices (Mac only)

Mac has built-in text to speech, but high quality voices are not available by default.

You can download high quality voices from the system voice menu: System Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > System Voice

Click the info icon next to the system voice dropdown. Search for "Siri" to find the highest quality voices. You'll have to trigger a download of the voice.

Once it's downloaded, you can select it in the Browser Voice (Local) menu in Chrome.

Test it with the bash command:

say "Hi, this is your Mac system voice"

To use Siri voices with voice-hooks, you need to set your system voice and select "Mac System Voice" in the voice-hooks browser interface.

Other downloaded voices will show up in the voice dropdown in the voice-hooks browser interface so you can select them there directly, instead of using the "Mac System Voice" option.

There is a bug in Safari that prevents browser text-to-speech from loading high-quality voices after browser restart. This is a Safari Web Speech API limitation. To use high-quality voices in Safari you need to set your system voice to Siri and select "Mac System Voice" in the voice-hooks browser interface.

Manual Hook Installation

The hooks are automatically installed/updated when the MCP server starts. However, if you need to manually install or reconfigure the hooks:

npx mcp-voice-hooks install-hooks

This will configure your project's .claude/settings.local.json with the necessary hook commands.

Uninstallation

To completely remove MCP Voice Hooks:

# Remove from Claude MCP servers
claude mcp remove voice-hooks

# Also remove hooks and settings
npx mcp-voice-hooks uninstall

This will:

Clean up voice hooks from your project's .claude/settings.local.json
Preserve any custom hooks you've added

Development Mode

If you're developing mcp-voice-hooks itself:

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/johnmatthewtennant/mcp-voice-hooks.git
cd mcp-voice-hooks

# 2. Install dependencies
npm install

# 3. Link the package locally
npm link

# 4. Install hooks (one time)
npx mcp-voice-hooks install-hooks

# 5. Start Claude Code
claude

Important: When developing with npm link:

Claude runs the compiled JavaScript from the dist folder, not your TypeScript source
After making changes to TypeScript files (src/*.ts), you must run npm run build
For changes to browser files (public/*), just restart Claude Code
Then restart Claude Code to use the updated code

Configuration

Port Configuration

The default port is 5111. To use a different port, add to your project's .claude/settings.local.json:

{
  "env": {
    "MCP_VOICE_HOOKS_PORT": "8080"
  }
}

Browser Auto-Open

When running in MCP-managed mode, the browser will automatically open if no frontend connects within 3 seconds. To disable this behavior:

{
  "env": {
    "MCP_VOICE_HOOKS_AUTO_OPEN_BROWSER": "false"
  }
}

Auto-Deliver Voice Input Before Tools

By default, voice input is not automatically delivered before tool execution to allow for faster tool execution. To enable auto-delivery before tools:

{
  "env": {
    "MCP_VOICE_HOOKS_AUTO_DELIVER_VOICE_INPUT_BEFORE_TOOLS": "true"
  }
}

When auto-delivery before tools is enabled:

Voice input is automatically delivered before each tool execution
Tools may be delayed if there's pending voice input
This ensures voice commands are processed before tools run
Note: This setting only applies when MCP_VOICE_HOOKS_AUTO_DELIVER_VOICE_INPUT is enabled (default)

When auto-delivery before tools is disabled (default):

Tools will execute immediately without checking for pending voice input
Voice input will only be processed at the stop hook or post-tool hook
Important: Delivered utterances that require voice responses will still be enforced
This provides better performance when voice interruption before tools is not needed

Auto-Deliver Voice Input (Default)

By default, mcp-voice-hooks automatically delivers voice input to Claude after tool use, before speaking, and before stopping:

The dequeue_utterances and wait_for_utterance MCP tools are hidden from Claude
Voice input is automatically delivered when Claude performs any action
Claude receives voice input naturally without needing to explicitly call mcp-voice-hooks tools

To disable auto-delivery:

{
  "env": {
    "MCP_VOICE_HOOKS_AUTO_DELIVER_VOICE_INPUT": "false"
  }
}

When auto-delivery is disabled:

The dequeue_utterances and wait_for_utterance tools become visible
Hooks no longer automatically process voice input
Claude will be blocked from making tool calls until it manually dequeues voice input
This mode is useful for debugging or when you want manual control