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macOS companion app

Voice overlay

Voice Overlay Lifecycle (macOS)

Audience: macOS app contributors. Goal: keep the voice overlay predictable when wake-word and push-to-talk overlap.

Configure voice input under Dashboard → Settings → Talk → This Mac. The overlay and microphone test remain native. The Dashboard owns their device settings. See Voice wake for the controls and permissions.

Behavior

  • The overlay can already be visible from wake-word when the user presses the hotkey. The hotkey session then adopts the existing text instead of resetting it. The overlay stays up while the hotkey is held. On release, send if there is trimmed text. Otherwise dismiss.
  • Wake-word alone still auto-sends on silence. Push-to-talk sends immediately on release.

Implementation

  • VoiceSessionCoordinator (apps/macos/Sources/OpenClaw/VoiceSessionCoordinator.swift) is the single owner of the active voice session. It is a @MainActor @Observable singleton, not an actor. API: startSession, updatePartial, finalize, sendNow, dismiss, updateLevel, snapshot. Each session carries a UUID token. The coordinator drops calls with a stale or mismatched token.
  • VoiceWakeOverlayController (VoiceWakeOverlayController+Session.swift) renders the overlay and forwards user actions (requestSend, dismiss) back through the coordinator via the session token. It never owns the session state itself.
  • Push-to-talk (VoicePushToTalk.begin()) adopts any visible overlay text as adoptedPrefix (via VoiceSessionCoordinator.shared.snapshot()). A hotkey press while the wake overlay is up therefore keeps the text and appends new speech. On release, push-to-talk waits up to 1.5s for a final transcript before falling back to the current text.
  • On dismiss, the overlay calls VoiceSessionCoordinator.overlayDidDismiss. That call triggers VoiceWakeRuntime.refresh(state:). Manual X-dismiss, empty-text dismiss, and post-send dismiss therefore all resume wake-word listening.
  • Unified send path: if trimmed text is empty, dismiss. Otherwise sendNow plays the send chime once, forwards via VoiceWakeForwarder, then dismisses.

Logging

Voice subsystem is ai.openclaw. Each component logs under its own category:

Category Component
voicewake.coordinator VoiceSessionCoordinator
voicewake.overlay VoiceWakeOverlayController/VoiceWakeOverlay
voicewake.ptt Push-to-talk hotkey and capture
voicewake.runtime Wake-word runtime
voicewake.chime Chime playback
voicewake.sync Global settings sync
voicewake.forward Transcript forwarding
voicewake.meter Mic level monitor

Debugging checklist

  • Stream logs while reproducing a sticky overlay:

    bash
    sudo log stream --predicate 'subsystem == "ai.openclaw" AND category CONTAINS "voicewake"' --level info --style compact

  • Verify only one active session token. The coordinator drops stale callbacks.

  • Verify that push-to-talk release always calls end() with the active token. If text is empty, expect a dismiss without chime or send.

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