swabble — macOS 26 speech hook daemon (Swift 6.2)

Goal: brabble-style always-on voice hook for macOS 26 using Apple Speech.framework (SpeechAnalyzer + SpeechTranscriber) instead of whisper.cpp. Local-only, wake word gated, dispatches a shell hook with the transcript. Shared wake-gate utilities live in SwabbleKit for reuse by other apps (iOS/macOS).

Requirements

• macOS 26+, Swift 6.2, Speech.framework with on-device assets.
• Local only; no network calls during transcription.
• Wake word gating (default "clawd" plus aliases) with bypass flag --no-wake.
• SwabbleKit target (multi-platform) providing wake-word gating helpers that can use speech segment timing to require a post-trigger gap.
• Hook execution with cooldown, min_chars, timeout, prefix, env vars.
• Simple config at ~/.config/swabble/config.json (JSON, Codable) — no TOML.
• CLI implemented with Commander (SwiftPM package steipete/Commander); core types are available via the SwiftPM library product Swabble for embedding.
• Foreground serve; later launchd helper for start/stop/restart.
• File transcription command emitting txt or srt.
• Basic status/health surfaces and mic selection stubs.

Architecture

• CLI layer (Commander): Root command swabble with subcommands serve, transcribe, test-hook, mic list|set, doctor, health, tail-log. Runtime flags from Commander (-v/--verbose, --json-output, --log-level). Custom --config path applies everywhere.
• Config: SwabbleConfig Codable. Fields: audio device name/index, wake (enabled/word/aliases/sensitivity placeholder), hook (command/args/prefix/cooldown/min_chars/timeout/env), logging (level, format), transcripts (enabled, max kept), speech (locale, enableEtiquetteReplacements flag). Stored JSON; default written by setup.
• Audio + Speech pipeline: SpeechPipeline wraps AVAudioEngine input → SpeechAnalyzer with SpeechTranscriber module. Emits partial/final transcripts via async stream. Requests .audioTimeRange when transcripts enabled. Handles Speech permission and asset download prompts ahead of capture.
• Wake gate: CLI currently uses text-only keyword match; shared SwabbleKit gate can enforce a minimum pause between the wake word and the next token when speech segments are available. --no-wake disables gating.
• Hook executor: async HookExecutor spawns Process with configured args, prefix substitution ${hostname}. Enforces cooldown + timeout; injects env SWABBLE_TEXT, SWABBLE_PREFIX plus user env map.
• Transcripts store: in-memory ring buffer; optional persisted JSON lines under ~/Library/Application Support/swabble/transcripts.log.
• Logging: simple structured logger to stderr; respects log level.

Out of scope (initial cut)

• Model management (Speech handles assets).
• Launchd helper (planned follow-up).
• Advanced wake-word detector (segment-aware gate now lives in SwabbleKit; CLI still text-only until segment timing is plumbed through).

Open decisions

• Whether to expose a UNIX control socket for status/health (currently planned as stdin/out direct calls).
• Hook redaction (PII) parity with brabble — placeholder boolean, no implementation yet.