Quickstart¶

First transcript¶

# See models + what is already cached
aurum models

# Fast trial (~32 MB quantized download on first use)
aurum path/to/audio.m4a --model tiny-q5_1

# Default local model is `base` (~142 MB full precision)
aurum path/to/audio.m4a

# Subtitles
aurum path/to/audio.m4a --model tiny-q5_1 -o srt --output-file out.srt

# Structured JSON (backend_kind, cleanup_style, segments, …)
aurum path/to/audio.m4a -o json

Repo fixtures¶

cargo run -p aurum-stt --release -- tests/fixtures/sample.wav --model tiny-q5_1
cargo run -p aurum-stt --release -- tests/fixtures/fillers.wav --model tiny-q5_1 --cleanup clean
cargo run -p aurum-stt --release -- tests/fixtures/multi_sentence.wav --model tiny-q5_1 --cleanup bullets

Text-to-speech¶

aurum tts "Hello from aurum" --output-file /tmp/hello.wav
aurum tts voices
# regenerate all voice demos locally (not committed):
# ./scripts/generate_tts_demos.sh --play

See TTS.

Batch a folder¶

aurum batch ./lectures --output-dir ./out --profile speed
aurum batch ./lectures -O ./out --resume --retry-failed

Profiles (optional)¶

aurum models recommend --profile balance
aurum talk.m4a --profile quality
# product default remains `base` when --profile is omitted

Support bundle¶

aurum doctor
aurum support-bundle -O /tmp/aurum-support.json

Cleanup (optional)¶

# After transcription
aurum talk.m4a --model tiny-q5_1 --cleanup clean
aurum talk.m4a --cleanup bullets

# Text only (no audio)
echo "um, so, you know, hello" | aurum cleanup -s clean
aurum cleanup notes.txt --style professional -o json

See Cleanup.

Remote providers (optional)¶

Remote is never the default. Set a key and an explicit --provider.

# OpenRouter — dedicated ASR when the model is in the reviewed registry
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-...   # never commit real keys
aurum talk.mp3 --provider openrouter --model openai/whisper-large-v3 -o srt
# Multimodal chat models (llm_assisted) — timestamps may be unreliable
aurum talk.mp3 --provider openrouter --model google/gemini-2.5-flash

# OpenAI first-party
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
aurum talk.mp3 --provider openai --model whisper-1

# Remote TTS
aurum tts "Hello" --provider openrouter -O /tmp/or.wav
aurum tts "Hello" --provider openai --model tts-1 --voice alloy -O /tmp/oai.wav

OpenRouter privacy

Account privacy/guardrails must allow the chosen model, or every request fails with “No endpoints available matching your guardrail restrictions”. Configure at https://openrouter.ai/settings/privacy

When accuracy matters

Prefer --provider local (whisper) for verbatim work. On OpenRouter, prefer reviewed dedicated ASR ids over chat multimodal. SRT is refused when timestamps are unreliable unless you pass --allow-unreliable-timestamps.

Full catalogue and tiers: Providers · Matrix.

Configuration¶

Platform config path (via the directories crate), e.g. on macOS:

~/Library/Application Support/aurum/config.toml

[stt]
provider = "local"
model = "base"
language = "auto"
output = "txt"

[cleanup]
style = "raw"
provider = "rules"

# [providers.openrouter]
# # prefer OPENROUTER_API_KEY env var for api_key
# model = "openai/whisper-large-v3"

Full reference: Configuration.