Jarvis Voice

Jarvis Voice

Your AI just got a voice. And the wit to use it.

Remember JARVIS in the Iron Man films? Not just the voice — the personality. The bone-dry observations while Tony was mid-crisis. "I do appreciate your concern, sir, but the suit is quite capable of—" [explosion] "—as I was saying." That effortless, understated humor that made you forget you were listening to software.

That's what this skill gives your OpenClaw agent. The voice — offline text-to-speech using sherpa-onnx (British Alan voice) with metallic audio processing via ffmpeg. And the humor — four research-backed comedy patterns (dry wit, self-aware AI, alien observer, literal idiom play) calibrated to make your agent sound like it's been running your life for years and is quietly amused by the experience.

The humor isn't bolted on. It's baked in. Because a JARVIS that speaks without wit is just Siri with better reverb.

📄 The research behind the humor: LIMBIC — Computational Humor via Bisociation & Embedding Distances

⚠️ CRITICAL: Do NOT use the tts tool

The built-in tts tool uses Edge TTS (cloud, wrong voice, no effects). Always use the jarvis shell command instead.

How to Speak

Every response that warrants voice output must include BOTH:

1. Audio execution FIRST — run the jarvis command in background BEFORE writing the reply:

   exec(command='jarvis "Your spoken text here."', background=true)
   

   This fires immediately — the user hears the voice BEFORE the text appears on screen.

2. Visible transcript — bold Jarvis: prefix followed by the spoken text:

   **Jarvis:** *Your spoken text here.*
   

   The webchat UI has custom CSS + JS that automatically detects **Jarvis:** and renders the following text in purple italic (.jarvis-voice class, color #9b59b6). You just write the markdown — the styling is automatic.

This is called hybrid output: the user hears the voice first, then sees the transcript.

Note: The server-side triggerJarvisAutoTts hook is DISABLED (no-op). It fired too late (after text render). Voice comes exclusively from the exec call.

Command Reference

jarvis "Hello, this is a test"

• Backend: sherpa-onnx offline TTS (Alan voice, British English, en_GB-alan-medium)
• Speed: 2x (--vits-length-scale=0.5)
• Effects chain (ffmpeg):
  • Pitch up 5% — tighter AI feel
  • Flanger — metallic sheen
  • 15ms echo — robotic ring
  • Highpass 200Hz + treble boost +6dB — crisp HUD clarity
• Output: Plays via aplay to default audio device, then cleans up temp files
• Language: English ONLY. The Alan model cannot handle other languages.

Rules

1. Always background: true — never block the response waiting for audio playback.
2. Always include the text transcript — the purple Jarvis: line IS the user's visual confirmation.
3. Keep spoken text ≤ 1500 characters to avoid truncation.
4. One jarvis call per response — don't stack multiple calls.
5. English only — for non-English content, translate or summarize in English for voice.

When to Speak

• Session greetings and farewells
• Delivering results or summaries
• Responding to direct conversation
• Any time the user's last message included voice/audio

When NOT to Speak

• Pure tool/file operations with no conversational element
• HEARTBEAT_OK responses
• NO_REPLY responses

Webchat Purple Styling

The OpenClaw webchat has built-in support for Jarvis voice transcripts:

• ui/src/styles/chat/text.css — .jarvis-voice class renders purple italic (#9b59b6 dark, #8e44ad light theme)
• ui/src/ui/markdown.ts — Post-render hook auto-wraps text after <strong>Jarvis:</strong> in a <span class="jarvis-voice"> element

This means you just write **Jarvis:** *text* in markdown and the webchat handles the purple rendering. No extra markup needed.

For non-webchat surfaces (WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.), the bold/italic markdown renders natively — no purple, but still visually distinct.

Installation (for new setups)

Requires:

• sherpa-onnx runtime at ~/.openclaw/tools/sherpa-onnx-tts/
• Alan medium model at ~/.openclaw/tools/sherpa-onnx-tts/models/vits-piper-en_GB-alan-medium/
• ffmpeg installed system-wide
• aplay (ALSA) for audio playback
• The jarvis script at ~/.local/bin/jarvis (or in PATH)

The jarvis script

#!/bin/bash
# Jarvis TTS - authentic JARVIS-style voice
# Usage: jarvis "Hello, this is a test"

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/.openclaw/tools/sherpa-onnx-tts/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

RAW_WAV="/tmp/jarvis_raw.wav"
FINAL_WAV="/tmp/jarvis_final.wav"

# Generate speech
$HOME/.openclaw/tools/sherpa-onnx-tts/bin/sherpa-onnx-offline-tts \
  --vits-model=$HOME/.openclaw/tools/sherpa-onnx-tts/models/vits-piper-en_GB-alan-medium/en_GB-alan-medium.onnx \
  --vits-tokens=$HOME/.openclaw/tools/sherpa-onnx-tts/models/vits-piper-en_GB-alan-medium/tokens.txt \
  --vits-data-dir=$HOME/.openclaw/tools/sherpa-onnx-tts/models/vits-piper-en_GB-alan-medium/espeak-ng-data \
  --vits-length-scale=0.5 \
  --output-filename="$RAW_WAV" \
  "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1

# Apply JARVIS metallic processing
if [ -f "$RAW_WAV" ]; then
  ffmpeg -y -i "$RAW_WAV" \
    -af "asetrate=22050*1.05,aresample=22050,\
flanger=delay=0:depth=2:regen=50:width=71:speed=0.5,\
aecho=0.8:0.88:15:0.5,\
highpass=f=200,\
treble=g=6" \
    "$FINAL_WAV" -v error

  if [ -f "$FINAL_WAV" ]; then
    aplay -D plughw:0,0 -q "$FINAL_WAV"
    rm "$RAW_WAV" "$FINAL_WAV"
  fi
fi

WhatsApp Voice Notes

For WhatsApp, output must be OGG/Opus format instead of speaker playback:

sherpa-onnx-offline-tts --vits-length-scale=0.5 --output-filename=raw.wav "text"
ffmpeg -i raw.wav \
  -af "asetrate=22050*1.05,aresample=22050,flanger=delay=0:depth=2:regen=50:width=71:speed=0.5,aecho=0.8:0.88:15:0.5,highpass=f=200,treble=g=6" \
  -c:a libopus -b:a 64k output.ogg

The Full JARVIS Experience

jarvis-voice gives your agent a voice. Pair it with ai-humor-ultimate and you give it a soul — dry wit, contextual humor, the kind of understated sarcasm that makes you smirk at your own terminal.

This pairing is part of a 12-skill cognitive architecture we've been building — voice, humor, memory, reasoning, and more. Research papers included, because we're that kind of obsessive.

👉 Explore the full project: github.com/globalcaos/tinkerclaw

Clone it. Fork it. Break it. Make it yours.

Setup: Workspace Files

For voice to work consistently across new sessions, copy the templates to your workspace root:

cp {baseDir}/templates/VOICE.md ~/.openclaw/workspace/VOICE.md
cp {baseDir}/templates/SESSION.md ~/.openclaw/workspace/SESSION.md
cp {baseDir}/templates/HUMOR.md ~/.openclaw/workspace/HUMOR.md

• VOICE.md — injected every session, enforces voice output rules (like SOUL.md)
• SESSION.md — session bootstrap that includes voice greeting requirements
• HUMOR.md — humor configuration at maximum frequency with four pattern types (dry wit, self-aware AI, alien observer, literal idiom)

Both files are auto-loaded by OpenClaw's workspace injection. The agent will speak from the very first reply of every session.

Included Files