Synthesize Speech

Generate speech from text using the Kokoro TTS CLI tool. Supports single WAV output or chunked streaming for long text.

Quick Usage

# Single WAV
~/.local/share/kokoro/.venv/bin/python ~/.local/share/kokoro/tts_generate.py \
  --text "Hello from Kokoro TTS" --voice af_heart --lang en-us --speed 1.0 \
  --output /tmp/kokoro-tts-$$.wav

# Play it
afplay /tmp/kokoro-tts-$$.wav

Parameters

Parameter	Default	Description
`--text`	(required)	Text to synthesize
`--voice`	`af_heart`	Voice name (see voice catalog)
`--lang`	`en-us`	Language code (en-us, zh, ja, etc.)
`--speed`	`1.0`	Speech speed multiplier
`--output`	(required)	Output WAV path
`--chunk`	off	Chunked streaming mode for long text

Voice Catalog

See Voice Catalog for all available voices with quality grades.

Top voices:

Voice ID	Name	Grade	Gender
af_heart	Heart	A	Female
af_bella	Bella	A-	Female
af_nicole	Nicole	B-	Female

Chunked Streaming

For long text, use --chunk to get progressive playback:

~/.local/share/kokoro/.venv/bin/python ~/.local/share/kokoro/tts_generate.py \
  --text "Long text here..." --voice af_heart --lang en-us --speed 1.0 \
  --output /tmp/kokoro-tts-$$.wav --chunk

Each chunk WAV path is printed to stdout as it becomes ready. The final line is DONE <ms>.

Troubleshooting