use-local-whisper

use-local-whisper is a skill for Claude Code from sliamh11/Deus. It costs 46 tokens per session (1,251 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of use-local-whisper, MIT.

A configuration for running Whisper voice transcription locally with whisper.cpp on Apple Silicon instead of using the OpenAI Whisper API.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for WhatsApp voice transcription on a Mac with Apple Silicon, with the required audio tools and model installed.
Why use it?
It keeps transcription on the device and removes the need for an API key, network access, or per-use API costs.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: installed under .claude/.

Good fit Use it for WhatsApp voice transcription on a Mac with Apple Silicon, with the required audio tools and model installed.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/sliamh11/deus/use-local-whisper
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add sliamh11/Deus --skill use-local-whisper
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/sliamh11/Deus

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for use-local-whisper

README.md
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Your own site
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Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/sliamh11/deus/use-local-whisper"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sliamh11/deus/use-local-whisper.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 46 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,251 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 92% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00046 $0.01251
Opus 5 $0.00023 $0.00626
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00250
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00125

Measured 6d ago against content hash dbdf9e977265, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

use-local-whisper scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 6d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

curl -L -o data/models/ggml-base.bin "https://huggingface.co/ggerganov/whisper.cpp/resolve/main/ggml-base.bin"
Origin

This is a copy

92% identical to use-local-whisper — 37 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

.claude/skills/use-local-whisper/SKILL.md · 136 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 136 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Use Local Whisper

Switches voice transcription from OpenAI's Whisper API to local whisper.cpp. Runs entirely on-device — no API key, no network, no cost.

Channel support: Currently WhatsApp only. The transcription module (src/transcription.ts) uses Baileys types for audio download. Other channels (Telegram, Discord, etc.) would need their own audio-download logic before this skill can serve them.

Note: The Homebrew package is whisper-cpp, but the CLI binary it installs is whisper-cli.

Prerequisites

  • voice-transcription skill must be applied first (WhatsApp channel)
  • macOS with Apple Silicon (M1+) recommended
  • whisper-cpp installed: brew install whisper-cpp (provides the whisper-cli binary)
  • ffmpeg installed: brew install ffmpeg
  • A GGML model file downloaded to data/models/

Phase 1: Pre-flight

Check if already applied

Check if src/transcription.ts already uses whisper-cli:

grep 'whisper-cli' src/transcription.ts && echo "Already applied" || echo "Not applied"

If already applied, skip to Phase 3 (Verify).

Check dependencies are installed

whisper-cli --help >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "WHISPER_OK" || echo "WHISPER_MISSING"
ffmpeg -version >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "FFMPEG_OK" || echo "FFMPEG_MISSING"

If missing, install via Homebrew:

brew install whisper-cpp ffmpeg

Check for model file

ls data/models/ggml-*.bin 2>/dev/null || echo "NO_MODEL"

If no model exists, download the base model (148MB, good balance of speed and accuracy):

mkdir -p data/models
curl -L -o data/models/ggml-base.bin "https://huggingface.co/ggerganov/whisper.cpp/resolve/main/ggml-base.bin"

For better accuracy at the cost of speed, use ggml-small.bin (466MB) or ggml-medium.bin (1.5GB).

Phase 2: Apply Code Changes

The local whisper feature modifies src/transcription.ts to use the whisper-cli binary instead of the OpenAI API. Check if it's already applied:

grep 'whisper-cli' src/transcription.ts && echo "Already applied" || echo "Not applied"

Read the full file on GitHub · 136 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 6d ago First seen · 136 lines · 46 tokens per session scan A dbdf9e977265

Subscribe to this mod's changes

use-local-whisper is a skill published in the GitHub repository sliamh11/Deus (51 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 46 tokens to every session and 1,251 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). It is 92% identical to use-local-whisper, differing in 37 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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