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The CLI is the open-source dictation engine at github.com/rekody/rekody (MIT). It runs as a daemon in your terminal: hold ⌥ Space anywhere on your desktop, speak, release, and the transcript lands at your cursor.
Rekody running in the terminal, transcribing speech into an editor window.
Requirements: macOS, Apple Silicon or Intel. 
brew install rekody/rekody/rekody
The formula auto-taps from the rekody/rekody tap. Newer Homebrew versions gate third-party taps; if prompted, run: 
brew trust rekody/rekody
The tap is only needed while Rekody lives outside homebrew-core. Once it is accepted there, a plain brew install rekody will do.

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One-line installer

No Homebrew needed. The script detects your platform, downloads the precompiled binary, and falls back to building from source if none exists: 
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rekody/rekody/main/install.sh | bash

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Build from source

git clone https://github.com/rekody/rekody.git
cd rekody
make install
The Rust toolchain is pinned in rust-toolchain.toml; rustup picks it up automatically.

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First run

rekody
The first run launches the setup wizard: pick a speech-to-text engine, optionally configure LLM cleanup, download the model, and grant the two macOS permissions (Accessibility for the hotkey and injection, Microphone to your terminal). Once set up, the daemon shows a live console: your words stream in as you talk, then the finished text is injected at your cursor.
The Rekody CLI console streaming a transcript live while recording.
macOS attributes microphone access for CLI apps to the parent terminal, so Terminal, iTerm, Warp, or Ghostty shows up in your Microphone permission list instead of Rekody. This is a system-level design, not a bug.

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Check the install

rekody doctor    # live connectivity check for every configured engine and provider
rekody --version
rekody doctor probes the microphone, verifies models on disk, tests each configured provider, and reports the size of your local training dataset.

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Updating

brew upgrade rekody
# or, for non-Homebrew installs
rekody update
rekody update downloads the latest GitHub release and verifies the tarball against the release’s published SHA256SUMS before installing. It replaces the binary that is actually running, wherever it is installed.

Related topics

Install the appRekodyContributingModels and checksumsconfig.toml reference