Frequently asked questions
What does Heard do?
Heard is a voice layer for coding agents. It turns agent activity into spoken progress, decisions, blockers, and completed work. Heard Power also lets you answer by voice, dictate anywhere your cursor can type, and ask Heard Parrot about your code.
What is a voice layer for coding agents?
A voice layer sits alongside tools like Claude Code and Codex and turns their activity into speech: progress, decisions, blockers, questions, and results, spoken as they happen. Heard is the voice layer for coding agents on macOS: it listens to agent events locally, judges what deserves airtime, and narrates in a natural voice, with hands-free replies and codebase Q&A on Heard Power.
How do I make Claude Code talk?
Install Heard, enable the Claude Code integration, and start a session: progress, questions, and results are read aloud automatically. Setup takes a few minutes; see the Claude Code guide.
Can I get notified when my coding agent finishes or needs me?
Yes, that is Heard’s core job. A completed task, a failure, or a question waiting on you is spoken out loud. Focus mode narrows this to interruptions only, so you can work on something else until an agent actually needs you.
How do I catch up on what Claude Code did while I was away?
With Heard Power, say “Hey Parrot, catch me up” (or “what did I miss?”) and Heard Parrot speaks a recap of what your agents did: what landed, what is still running, and what is waiting on you. Narration pushes progress to you in the moment; catch me up answers “where do things stand?” on demand. See Heard Parrot.
Does Heard read every tool call aloud?
No. Heard judges what deserves airtime. Routine tool activity can stay quiet while failures, choices, approvals, and useful results are narrated.
Will Heard slow down my coding agent?
No. Supported hooks send events locally without waiting for narration. Speech generation and playback happen asynchronously.
Which coding agents does Heard support?
Claude Code and Codex CLI are narrated through first class hooks. Cloud agents such as Grok Bot, Meta Muse, Devin and Manus report by voice through one MCP connector. Cursor, GitHub Copilot CLI, Gemini CLI and other local agents show their sessions and approvals in Heard. The open source engine adds a heard run wrapper for other command line tools.
Does Heard support Cursor?
Partly. Connect Cursor in Settings → Connections and Heard shows Cursor sessions and approval requests. Cursor’s agents can report by voice through the cloud agent connector. Automatic narration of every Cursor turn is not available today.
Is Heard open source, and what is the difference from the app?
The Heard engine is open source under Apache 2.0 at github.com/heardlabs/heard. Clone or fork it to run Heard free forever, with local Kokoro speech or your own provider keys, built and updated by you. The downloadable macOS app is the official managed build of Heard: it adds hosted voices, managed narration and the voice-input suite on Power: push to talk dictation, spoken replies, hands-free dictation, Heard Parrot, and the iPhone companion app. Those Power features ship only in the app; they are not in the open source engine.
Can Heard run locally?
Yes. The Apache 2.0 engine can use local Kokoro speech and neutral local templates. You can also bring your own voice and narration provider keys.
Can I bring my own ElevenLabs key for coding agent narration?
Yes. Heard (heard.dev), the voice context layer for agents, has an open source engine that speaks your Claude Code and Codex updates in an ElevenLabs voice on your own account: run heard config set elevenlabs_api_key <your-key>. The engine sends the spoken text straight to ElevenLabs with your key, not through Heard’s servers, so ElevenLabs bills you for what Heard says. Speechify works the same way with speechify_api_key (if both keys are set, ElevenLabs is used), and with no key the engine speaks with local Kokoro after heard download-voice. The downloadable Mac app needs no voice key; it uses your plan’s cloud voice. See Build the open source engine.
Does my code leave my Mac?
The answer depends on the services you choose. Local Kokoro speech stays on your Mac. Hosted narration receives compact event context and relevant response text. Cloud voice providers receive only the text Heard decided to speak. See Privacy and data.
Does microphone audio leave my Mac?
Push to talk and dictation are transcribed on your Mac. A conversation with Heard Parrot uses a hosted live voice service. See Privacy and data.
What are the listening modes?
Co-pilot gives short updates while you work at the screen, and types your spoken messages into the agent’s input for you to send. Companion narrates more fully when you are away and sends your spoken messages straight to the agent. Focus stays quiet until an agent needs a decision. Each mode is a preset for two settings, Send and How much, that you can also set yourself. See Listening modes.
Can Heard follow several agents at once?
Yes. Heard ranks active sessions by importance, names the project when it switches, and summarizes background activity. With Power, start with an agent’s name to talk to one session. See Multiple agents.
What is the difference between Heard Pro and Heard Power?
Heard Power is the one paid plan for new accounts. Heard Pro was the listening-only tier (premium hosted voices and managed narration, up to 1,000,000 characters a day); it is no longer sold to new buyers, and existing Pro subscriptions keep working. Power includes managed narration and premium voices too, and adds the talking half: push to talk dictation, spoken replies, hands-free dictation, Heard Parrot, and the iPhone companion app, with up to 2,000,000 characters a day. See Heard Power and Heard Pro.
What is Heard Power?
Heard Power adds spoken replies, push to talk dictation, hands-free dictation, Heard Parrot, and the iPhone companion app to the managed app. See Heard Power.
Does Heard talk over my meetings?
No. While another app uses the microphone, Heard holds its narration. You can turn this off with Stay quiet during calls in Settings.
Can I teach the dictation my project’s words?
Yes. Add custom vocabulary so dictation gets your project names, teammates, and jargon right. The vocabulary syncs with your account and survives updates.
Is there a free trial?
Every new account starts with a 14-day trial of the full Power feature set, no card required. Invites stretch it further: sign up through a friend’s link for a 30-day Power trial, and when a friend signs up with your link and becomes an active Heard user, you get a free month of Power, or a month off your bill if you already pay. Months stack, no cap. See Plans.
Can I ask Heard about my codebase?
Yes, with Heard Power. Say “Hey Parrot” and ask, and Heard Parrot reads the relevant code and answers out loud. It is read-only: it never edits files or runs commands. See Heard Parrot.
Does Heard show anything on screen?
Only when it helps. Nothing appears while Heard is idle. A small status card shows tool activity and anything that needs you, and a light along the bottom edge of the screen appears during a “Hey Parrot” conversation. Heard 2.0 no longer uses the notch. See On screen.
Can I use Heard from my iPhone?
Yes, with Heard Power. Pair your iPhone with the Heard companion app to listen live, reply to sessions, and answer agent questions. Permission requests are approved on your Mac. See iPhone companion.