Verbative Speak

A plugin that makes Claude Code speak. When a task finishes you hear a short summary of what Claude did. When it waits for you, you hear what it needs: an approval for a command or a file, an answer to its question, or a plan to review. Step away from the screen and still know where things stand.

It works in any Claude Code session, with no VS Code needed. The voice is natural and runs on your own computer: no API key, and nothing is sent to a speech service.

Install

In Claude Code, run:

/plugin marketplace add verbative/verbative-claude-plugins
/plugin install verbative-speak@verbative

The first session downloads the voice once, about half a gigabyte, and Claude starts speaking as soon as it’s ready. If the Verbative VS Code extension already has its voice, the plugin uses that one instead of downloading a second copy.

What you need

• A Mac with Apple silicon, or Windows. On Windows, Claude Code runs plugin hooks with Git Bash, so Git for Windows must be installed. Linux isn’t supported yet.
• A session on your own computer. The sound plays on the machine running Claude Code, so it’s for local sessions, not SSH. Claude’s Cowork mode runs in a virtual machine without sound, so Verbative Speak stays quiet there.

What you hear

• “On it.” when Claude starts on your request.
• A one-line summary when a task finishes. Claude ends each reply with a line written to be heard, with no code and no file paths, and that’s what you hear. Or just “Done.”, if you prefer.
• What Claude needs when it waits for you: an approval to run a command or edit a file, an answer to its question, or a plan to review.
• Several sessions at once: each one says which project it’s speaking for, and their voices queue instead of talking over each other.

Commands

• /verbative-speak:voice — your status, then pick the voice, its speed, what it says when a task finishes, and approval reminders. It plays a sample.
• /verbative-speak:voice off and on — switch the voice off or on.
• /verbative-speak:voice test — play a test line.
• /verbative-speak:account — your plan: upgrade, sign in or sign out, step by step.

The same settings also show in Claude Code’s /config.

Settings

• Voice — eleven voices, American and British, female and male.
• Speed — from 0.5 to 2; 1.0 is a normal pace and 1.3 the default.
• When a task finishes — read the summary, or just say “Done.”
• Approval reminders — on or off.

Plans

Free: 10 spoken summaries a day. “On it.” and approval reminders come with them and don’t count. The tenth summary tells you it’s the last one, and then Verbative Speak is quiet until the next day (00:00 UTC).

Code Advanced: unlimited, together with Verbative Memory and the full VS Code extension, with a 14-day free trial for first-time subscribers. Upgrade from /verbative-speak:account: it opens the order page in your browser for your account, and Verbative Speak is unlimited from your next task. See the plans.

With the VS Code extension

The plugin and the Verbative extension share your plan and one sign-in: signing in or out in either applies to both. While the extension’s Hands-Free panel is open, the extension voices the sessions in VS Code and the plugin stays quiet, so nothing is said twice; with the panel closed, the plugin speaks. The plugin uses the extension’s voice choices until you pick your own.

What Claude is told

While the voice is on, Verbative Speak adds one instruction to each of your prompts: end the reply with a 🔊 line written to be heard. After you switch the voice off, Claude is told once per session to drop that line. Both are plain text files in the plugin, word for word (instructions), and the plugin adds nothing else to your prompts.

Privacy

The voice runs on your computer: what Claude writes is turned into speech there, and neither your prompts nor the replies leave it. What the plugin does send:

• Setup downloads the voice engine and the voice model from Verbative’s releases on GitHub. Every file is checked against a fixed checksum.
• Your plan: at first start it registers an anonymous license with Verbative (no email) under a random device ID, with your operating system, “Claude Code” as the editor, and the plugin version. Each session start checks the plan and sends the same three details again.
• The free limit: after each spoken summary it reports the day’s count (license and device ID, no content), so the limit holds across your computers.
• Product events: whether the setup finished, or the kind of failure (for example a network error, never a message), each once; on Code Advanced, one per day on which it was used. They carry the license and device ID, and no content.
• Signing in sends your email to Verbative to receive a code; upgrading sends your license so the order page opens for your account.

Details in the privacy policy.

Remove it

Run /plugin uninstall verbative-speak@verbative in Claude Code. The downloaded voice stays in Verbative’s data folder under plugin (on a Mac ~/Library/Application Support/Verbative/plugin, on Windows %APPDATA%\Verbative\plugin) and can be deleted.