OSGKeyboard

Hold a key, speak, release — AI-polished text appears at your cursor in any app. A source-available, custom-keyboard-based voice input tool for iOS 26+, inspired by Typeless and OpenLess.

中文 README

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What is it?

OSGKeyboard is a free, source-available alternative to commercial voice-input tools. It runs as a Custom Keyboard Extension on iOS, so you can use it in any app — Messages, Notes, Mail, ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, you name it.

1. Press and hold the mic key
2. Speak naturally
3. Release — the AI polishes your words into clean text and inserts it at the cursor

The audio stays on-device (transcribed by Apple's on-device SpeechAnalyzer + DictationTranscriber on iOS 26+). Only the polished transcript is sent to your chosen cloud LLM. No audio ever leaves your phone.

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Features

• 🎙 Push-to-talk with a Typeless-style circular mic button
• 🧠 On-device ASR (SpeechAnalyzer + DictationTranscriber, iOS 26+)
• ✍️ AI polishing — adds structure, punctuation, fixes grammar, optionally produces lists
• 🧩 Local + cloud polish toggle — local engine is ASR-only by default; opt into a post-ASR cloud polish step (DeepSeek by default) when the iOS speech recognition isn't strong enough for your environment (noisy far-field audio, strong accents, etc.)
• 🔌 Bring-your-own API — works with any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (OpenAI, DeepSeek, Qwen DashScope, your own self-hosted server, …)
• 🔒 Privacy first — audio never leaves your device; transcripts only sent to the LLM you choose
• 🎨 Native SwiftUI — dark theme, frosted glass, ~2000 lines of Swift
• 🪶 Zero dependencies — no SwiftPM packages, no CocoaPods, no Carthage

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Quick start

Requirements

• macOS with Xcode 16+ (Xcode 26 recommended)
• iPhone running iOS 26.0+
• XcodeGen: brew install xcodegen
• An OpenAI-compatible API key (e.g. from OpenAI, DeepSeek, or Qwen DashScope)

Build & run

git clone https://github.com/hkgood/OSGKeyboard.git
cd OSGKeyboard
xcodegen generate          # produces OSGKeyboard.xcodeproj
open OSGKeyboard.xcodeproj # or build via CLI:
xcodebuild -project OSGKeyboard.xcodeproj -scheme OSGKeyboard \
  -destination 'generic/platform=iOS Simulator' build

Enable the keyboard in iOS

1. Run the app on your device or simulator.
2. Follow the 3-step onboarding: enable the keyboard in iOS Settings, then allow Full Access (required for the mic and LLM calls), then paste your API key.
3. In any text field, tap 🌐 to switch to OSGKeyboard.
4. Press and hold the mic, speak, release. ✨

"Allow Full Access" is required. Without it, iOS blocks the keyboard from using the microphone and from making network requests. We never log, store, or transmit your keystrokes — see PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy.

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Architecture

OSGKeyboard/
├── OSGKeyboard/                 # Main iOS app (settings, onboarding)
│   ├── Views/                   # SwiftUI screens
│   ├── OSGKeyboardApp.swift     # @main entry
│   ├── PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy    # Required privacy manifest
│   └── OSGKeyboard.entitlements # App Group declaration
├── OSGKeyboardExt/              # Custom Keyboard Extension
│   ├── KeyboardViewController.swift   # Principal class
│   ├── Services/
│   │   ├── AudioCaptureService.swift  # AVAudioEngine → 16 kHz PCM
│   │   ├── ASRService.swift           # iOS 26 SpeechAnalyzer ASR
│   │   └── PolishingService.swift     # LLM call with timeout
│   └── Views/                   # RecordButton, Waveform, KeyboardRootView
├── OSGKeyboardShared/           # Framework shared by app + extension
│   ├── Models/                  # ProviderConfig, LLMRequest, LLMProvider
│   ├── Services/                # LLMClient (OpenAI-compatible)
│   └── Constants/               # AppGroup identifier
├── OSGKeyboardTests/            # XCTest unit tests
├── project.yml                  # XcodeGen project definition
└── .github/workflows/ci.yml     # Lint + build CI

Data flow

[Long-press mic] → AudioCaptureService → AudioBufferSnapshot (16 kHz mono)
                                          ↓
                                  ASRService.transcribe()
                                          ↓
                                ASREvent.final(rawTranscript)
                                          ↓
                              PolishingService.polish()
                                          ↓
                            LLMClient (OpenAI-compatible)
                                          ↓
                          textDocumentProxy.insertText(polished)

Engine modes:

• cloud (default): ASR runs on-device via SpeechAnalyzer, the transcript is sent to your configured LLM for polish.
• local: ASR runs on-device via SpeechAnalyzer. The transcript is inserted as-is — no cloud round-trip.
• local + "Cloud polish after ASR" toggle (Settings → On-device models): same as cloud in spirit, but routed via the local-engine pipeline so the keyboard extension can still use the on-device ASR; the transcript is sent to the configured LLM before insertion. Requires a DeepSeek (or other OpenAI-compatible) API key in the Keychain.

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Adding a new LLM provider

Open OSGKeyboardShared/Models/LLMProvider.swift and append a new LLMProvider to the presets array. The default OpenAICompatibleClient handles any endpoint that speaks the POST /chat/completions protocol.

LLMProvider(
    id: "groq",
    name: "Groq",
    defaultBaseURL: "https://api.groq.com/openai/v1",
    defaultModel: "llama-3.1-70b-versatile",
    apiKeyURL: URL(string: "https://console.groq.com/keys")
)

That's it. No other code changes required.

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Limitations

• iOS sandboxes keyboard extensions: ~60 MB memory cap, Full Access required.
• The keyboard does not work in password fields or some WKWebView textareas (iOS limitation).
• iOS 26+ only. Earlier iOS versions are not supported.

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License

OSGKeyboard Source Available License — personal learning and non-commercial local use only. No commercial use, redistribution, or public forks without permission. Commercial licensing: rocky.hk@gmail.com.

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Acknowledgements

• Inspired by Typeless and the desktop open-source OpenLess
• Built with XcodeGen
• Powered by Apple's SpeechAnalyzer and SFSpeechRecognizer

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Note: the project is published at hkgood/OSGKeyboard; badges and git clone URLs already point there.