Natural Conversation Mode for Pi

Adds a voice-friendly conversation mode with strict limits on what Pi can do while listening.

What you can do

• Lets you speak to Pi and hear spoken answers, including barge-in for long replies.
• Temporarily limits Pi to safer tools while listening.
• Supports microphone, speech recognition, and spoken replies.
• Provides setup and device checks before normal use.

Install

Install it through Pi:

pi install npm:@firstpick/pi-package-natural-conversation

Restart Pi if the package does not appear in your current session.

How to use it

Start with these commands:

• /talk setup — choose audio providers, test devices, and review privacy consent.
• /talk on — enter conversation safe mode and start audio when configured.
• /talk off — stop audio and restore the previous Pi settings.
• /talk pause / /talk resume — pause or continue listening.
• /talk doctor — check the microphone, speaker, speech recognition, and speech output.
• /talk status — show the current conversation and audio state.

Before you start

Start with /talk setup. It walks through microphone, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, privacy consent, and a quick device check. Native audio currently targets Linux and needs PipeWire, PulseAudio, ALSA, or FFmpeg audio tools. Speech recognition needs a configured local or hosted STT provider; spoken replies need Piper, espeak-ng, or another configured local or hosted TTS provider. Secrets are not stored in the voice settings file.

Technical details

See TECHNICAL.md for complete commands, configuration, compatibility, security, and troubleshooting information.