[srp]

chat-controls.mp4

The screenshot and silent clip show a genuine Pi reply after reading the public Northstar demo. The clip shows controls appearing on hover, hiding when the pointer leaves, and appearing again with keyboard focus. It demonstrates the UI, not audible playback. Captured from 90385be in Chromium 156 against a real Herdr backend; desktop viewport 1100 x 860, screenshot DPR 2, video DPR 1.

Summary

Sometimes a long agent reply is easier to hear than read, especially on a phone. This adds a small Speak button beside Copy in Agent History Chat, using the browser's native speech synthesis.

• Convert Markdown with the existing marked lexer: retain prose, short identifiers, link labels, image descriptions, and small tables; announce omitted code blocks, diagrams, and oversized tables instead of reading their syntax.
• Read the complete reply as a snapshot, in sequential chunks. Stop immediately when requested, when another reply is chosen, or when the chat closes or changes session. No automatic narration.
• Reveal Speak on desktop hover or keyboard focus, whilst keeping Stop visible during playback. On mobile the control stays visible.
• Save browser voice and speaking rate under Configuration > Behavior > Speech, with voice-list updates and graceful fallback when a saved voice is unavailable.

There are no new dependencies, server endpoints, or external speech integrations. The formatter remains separate from playback. Existing asset budgets are unchanged.

Compatibility and limitations

Speech depends on the browser and its installed voices. Unsupported browsers show a disabled control. Some voices use online services and may send reply text to their provider; Settings and the feature documentation state this. Background and locked-screen playback are not guaranteed. No microphone permission is required.

Verification

• bun run precommit — formatting, Oxlint, TypeScript checks, frontend build, and the complete test suite: 3,929 passed, 4 optional tests skipped, 0 failed.
• bun run typecheck:bun — all three projects passed.
• bun run build:web — passed, including asset budgets.
• Apple Silicon trial binary built with bun run build:darwin-arm64.
• Formatter, mocked playback, preference persistence, mounted UI lifecycle, and compiled stylesheet tests cover the new behaviour.
• Real Herdr-backed Chromium checks passed for desktop idle/hover visibility, keyboard focus, mobile layout, and saved rate changes. The headless capture environment has no installed voices, so it does not establish audible playback.
• The contributor reports successful playback using the trial binary on an Apple Silicon Mac; the browser/version was not recorded. Physical iOS and Android playback, and Safari/Firefox/Brave-specific behaviour, remain unverified.

Oxlint reports one pre-existing TerminalView.tsx:689 warning. Vite also reports its existing large-chunk advisory; neither check fails.

Speech settings

Mobile layout

Chromium viewport 390 x 844, DPR 2; this establishes layout only, not physical-device playback or keyboard behaviour.