GroqDictate

GroqDictate is a small macOS menu bar dictation app.

Press Right ⌘ to start recording and press it again to stop. The app transcribes with Groq Whisper, writes the transcript to your clipboard, and tries to paste it into the app you were working in.

For Users

What you need

• macOS 14+
• A Groq API key (gsk_...)

First-time setup

1. Launch the app.
2. Open Settings and enter your Groq API key.
3. Grant Microphone permission.
4. Grant Accessibility permission so GroqDictate can inspect the focused field and auto-paste.
5. Grant Input Monitoring for the most reliable global Right ⌘ and Esc hotkeys.

If Input Monitoring is denied, GroqDictate falls back to best-effort key monitoring. In that mode, shortcuts may pass through to the focused app, and Secure Input/protected contexts can block detection.

If auto-paste is unavailable or denied, the transcript remains in your clipboard and GroqDictate shows a notice.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Right ⌘: start/stop dictation
• Esc: cancel/dismiss

Wireless Bluetooth microphones can take a moment to wake on macOS. If the panel waveform is flat at first, begin speaking when it starts moving. Wired/USB microphones generally avoid this wake-up delay.

For Developers

Requirements

• macOS 14+
• Xcode 26.x (validated on Xcode 26.3, with Command Line Tools)
• XcodeGen 2.45+

Common commands

make doctor
make generate
make test
make validate
make dev

project.yml is the source of truth for the Xcode project. Regenerate GroqDictate.xcodeproj with make generate after changing targets or build settings.

Prefer the Makefile targets over ad hoc xcodebuild commands. make test runs signed local Debug tests; make validate is the unsigned automation validation path.

Fresh local run with reset:

make dev RESET=1 FORCE=1

Enable persistent debug diagnostics:

make dev RESET=1 FORCE=1 DEBUG_PERSIST=1

Structured diagnostics journal:

~/Library/Application Support/GroqDictate/Diagnostics/diagnostics.jsonl

Release build

make release \
  DEVELOPER_ID_APP="Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)" \
  NOTARY_PROFILE="your-notarytool-profile"

This builds, signs, notarizes, staples, verifies, and outputs dist/GroqDictate.app and dist/GroqDictate.zip.

Project docs

• Product direction: docs/product.md
• Architecture notes: docs/architecture.md
• Verification: docs/verification.md

Privacy

• API keys are stored in macOS Keychain.
• Audio is written to temporary files during processing and cleaned up by app flow.
• Diagnostics are structured for debugging, with secrets and sensitive text sanitized.

License

MIT (LICENSE).