Guide
A coding task often starts with an explanation: what is broken, what you expect, and what the agent should leave alone. Dictation lets you speak that context while keeping your cursor in your coding tool.
Choose a small task you can explain out loud. Include the symptom, the expected behavior, and a way to check the result.
Example prompt: “The settings panel loses the selected microphone after I restart the app. Find where that selection is saved, preserve it across restarts, and test with two different input devices. Keep the layout as it is.”
Read the transcript before sending it. Check file names, numbers, negations such as “do not,” and any shell commands. Dictation and AI cleanup can both change meaning.
| Task | Useful approach |
|---|---|
| AI coding prompts | Explain the goal, constraints, and acceptance check in complete sentences. |
| Code review | Describe the behavior you noticed and the change you are asking for. |
| Commit messages | Summarize the change and why it was needed, then trim the transcript. |
| Documentation | Talk through an example, then verify commands and formatting. |
| Precise syntax | Use the keyboard when punctuation or exact identifiers would take longer to correct. |
Use a shortcut that does not conflict with your editor. Add recurring project names and technical terms to your dictation dictionary. Test a short recording in the app where you intend to use it, including the paste permissions your operating system requires.
For client or private code, check where the audio and transcript will be processed. A local transcription model and a cloud cleanup model are separate choices.
For your next five small tasks, dictate the explanation and review it before sending. Notice whether speaking helped you include useful context, and whether correcting the text took more effort than typing it. Your vocabulary, microphone, and working environment all matter.
VoiceForge provides a global hotkey, transcription, and paste at your cursor on macOS, Windows, and Linux. It costs $79 once. Local Whisper transcription needs no API key; optional cloud transcription and cloud AI cleanup use your own provider account and may cost extra.
Watch a real prompt land in Codex →
Ten practical ways to plan, dictate, and review a useful first draft.
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