Speech.sh

A text-to-speech CLI and MCP server using the Groq TTS API (OpenAI-compatible).

Features

• Convert text to speech with a simple command
• Multiple voice options (troy, austin, hannah, autumn)
• Adjustable speech speed
• Hash-based caching to avoid duplicate API calls (24h auto-cleanup)
• Retry with exponential backoff
• Audio playback via ffplay, mplayer, or VLC
• MCP server for integration with AI assistants (Claude Desktop, Claude Code)

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/j3k0/speech.sh.git
cd speech.sh
export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-groq-api-key"
./speech.sh --text "Hello, world!"

Dependencies

• curl, jq (for the shell version)
• One audio player: ffplay (from ffmpeg), mplayer, or vlc

CLI Usage

# Basic
./speech.sh --text "Hello, world!"

# With options
./speech.sh --text "Hello!" --voice austin --speed 1.2 --verbose

Options

-t, --text TEXT       Text to convert to speech (required)
-v, --voice VOICE     Voice to use (default: troy)
-s, --speed SPEED     Speech speed (default: 1.0)
-o, --output FILE     Output file path (default: auto-generated)
-a, --api_key KEY     API key
-m, --model MODEL     TTS model (default: canopylabs/orpheus-v1-english)
-p, --player PLAYER   Audio player: auto, ffmpeg, mplayer, vlc (default: auto)
-r, --retries N       Retry attempts (default: 3)
-T, --timeout N       Timeout in seconds (default: 30)
    --verbose         Enable verbose logging

API Key

Provide your Groq API key in one of three ways (in order of precedence):

1. --api_key "your-key"
2. export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-key"
3. A file named API_KEY in the script's directory

MCP Server

Two implementations are available:

Python (recommended)

Uses the FastMCP SDK. Requires Python 3.10+ and uv.

# Setup
uv venv --python python3 .venv
uv pip install --python .venv/bin/python "mcp[cli]" httpx

# Run
OPENAI_API_KEY="your-key" .venv/bin/python server.py

Claude Desktop / Claude Code configuration

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "speak": {
      "command": "/path/to/speech.sh/.venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["/path/to/speech.sh/server.py"],
      "env": {
        "OPENAI_API_KEY": "your-groq-api-key",
        "SPEECH_VOICE": "troy",
        "SPEECH_SPEED": "1.0",
        "SPEECH_MODEL": "canopylabs/orpheus-v1-english"
      }
    }
  }
}

Shell (legacy)

The original shell-based MCP server (mcp.sh). Works in environments without Python but may hit macOS sandboxing issues with Claude Desktop.

./mcp.sh

MCP Tool

The server exposes a single speak tool:

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
text	string	yes		The text to speak
voice	string	no	troy	Voice to use
speed	number	no	1.0	Speech speed

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default
OPENAI_API_KEY	Groq API key	(required)
SPEECH_VOICE	Default voice	troy
SPEECH_SPEED	Default speed	1.0
SPEECH_MODEL	TTS model	canopylabs/orpheus-v1-english
SPEECH_API_URL	API endpoint (Python)	https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/audio/speech

Architecture

• speech.sh - Shell-based TTS engine (API calls, caching, playback)
• mcp.sh - Shell-based MCP wrapper over speech.sh (JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio)
• server.py - Python MCP server, self-contained replacement for both scripts above

License

GPL