parakeet-local-asr_skill

Overview

This skill installs and operates a local NVIDIA Parakeet automatic speech recognition (ASR) service tailored for OpenClaw. It provides scripts to bootstrap, start, and validate a deterministic Parakeet ASR instance on Ubuntu/Linux and macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon). Use it to run a private, OpenAI-compatible transcription API locally, with optional Whisper fallback for reliability.

How this skill works

The skill supplies a small script suite (bootstrap, start, healthcheck, smoke-test) that installs dependencies and places the service in ~/parakeet-asr by default. The running service exposes an OpenAI-compatible transcription endpoint at http://localhost:9001/v1/audio/transcriptions for easy OpenClaw integration. Healthcheck and smoke-test scripts let you validate runtime health and perform quick transcription checks with local audio files.

When to use it

• You need private/local speech-to-text without sending audio to cloud providers.
• Setting up a local OpenAI-compatible transcription endpoint for OpenClaw integrations.
• Troubleshooting or debugging a deterministic Parakeet ASR deployment on Ubuntu or macOS.
• Running ASR on Apple Silicon or Intel macOS where local GPU/CPU optimizations matter.
• Adding Whisper as an optional fallback for improved reliability.

Best practices

• Run bootstrap.sh to install or update runtime before starting the service.
• Use the default install path (~/parakeet-asr) or set PARAKEET_DIR to a dedicated directory to avoid accidental changes.
• Run healthcheck.sh after start.sh to confirm the service is healthy before integrating with OpenClaw.
• Use smoke-test.sh with representative short audio samples to validate transcription quality and latency.
• Ask for permission before performing package-manager or privileged operations; avoid killing unrelated processes.

Example use cases

• Deploy a private ASR endpoint for a voice assistant that must not send data offsite.
• Prepare a reproducible local transcription environment for development and CI testing of OpenClaw voice features.
• Migrate an existing OpenClaw integration from cloud transcription to a local Parakeet instance for cost and privacy reasons.
• Fallback configuration where Parakeet is primary and Whisper is used when Parakeet fails or degrades.