Installation

Requirements

Before installing Steno from source, confirm these requirements:

• macOS 13.0+
• Xcode 26+
• Homebrew
• xcodegen (brew install xcodegen)
• cmake (brew install cmake)

You also need a local build of whisper.cpp and at least one model file.

Setup Steps

From a terminal:

git clone https://github.com/Ankit-Cherian/steno.git
cd steno
git clone https://github.com/ggerganov/whisper.cpp vendor/whisper.cpp
cd vendor/whisper.cpp
git checkout v1.8.3
cmake -B build && cmake --build build --config Release
./models/download-ggml-model.sh small.en
cd ../..
xcodegen generate

Then in Xcode:

1. Open Steno.xcodeproj.
2. Set your Apple Developer Team in Signing and Capabilities.
3. Run scheme Steno (Cmd+R).

First Launch

On first run, macOS will prompt for permissions.

• Microphone: required for recording
• Accessibility: required for direct typing/accessibility insertion
• Input Monitoring: required for global hotkeys in other apps

If you deny a permission, you can re-enable it later from Steno settings.

Verify Install

Run this quick checklist:

1. Hold Option, speak, then release. You should see transcription and insertion.
2. Press F18 (or your configured key) to start hands-free, then press again to stop.
3. Dictate once in a text editor and once in a terminal.
4. Open History and confirm entries are saved.

If anything fails, open the Troubleshooting page.