Introduction
# Speech is Cheap (SIC) Skill
Fast, accurate, and incredibly inexpensive automatic speech-to-text transcription service.
## 🚀 Why use this skill? - **Disruptive Pricing:** $0.06 - $0.12 per hour (2-15x cheaper than Deepgram or OpenAI). - **Extreme Speed:** 100 minutes of audio transcribes in ~1 minute. - **Multilingual:** Supports 100 languages with auto-detection. - **Agent-Ready:** Designed for high-volume, automated pipelines.
## 🛠Setup
### 1. Get an API Key Sign up at [speechischeap.com](https://speechischeap.com). Use code `CH5` for $5 off.
### 2. Configure Authentication This skill looks for your API key in the `SIC_API_KEY` environment variable.
Add this to your `.env` or agent config: ```bash SIC_API_KEY=your_key_here ```
## 📖 Usage ### 🤖 TL;DR for Agents When this skill is installed, you can transcribe any URL from an OpenClaw session and get the JSON results immediately by running: `./skills/asr/scripts/asr.sh transcribe --url "https://example.com/audio.mp3"`
### Transcribe a URL ```bash # Basic transcription ./skills/asr/scripts/asr.sh transcribe --url "https://example.com/audio.mp3"
# Advanced transcription with options ./skills/asr/scripts/asr.sh transcribe --url "https://example.com/audio.mp3" \ --speakers --words --labels \ --language "en" \ --format "srt" \ --private ```
### Transcribe a Local File Perfect for processing audio already on your disk. This handles the upload automatically. ```bash # Upload and transcribe local media ./skills/asr/scripts/asr.sh transcribe --file "./local-audio.wav"
# Upload with webhook callback ./skills/asr/scripts/asr.sh transcribe --file "./local-audio.wav" --webhook "https://mysite.com/callback"
# Note: For local files, the skill handles the multi-part upload to # https://upload.speechischeap.com before starting the transcription. ```
### Supported Options - `--speakers`: Enable speaker diarization - `--words`: Enable word-level timestamps - `--labels`: Enable audio labeling (music, noise, etc.) - `--stream`: Enable streaming output - `--private`: Do not store audio/transcript (privacy mode) - `--language <code>`: ISO language code (e.g., 'en', 'es') - `--confidence <float>`: Minimum confidence threshold (default 0.5) - `--format <fmt>`: Output format (json, srt, vtt, webvtt) - `--webhook <url>`: URL to receive job completion payload - `--segment-duration <n>`: Segment duration in seconds (default 30)
### Check Job Status ```bash ./skills/asr/scripts/asr.sh status "job-id-here" ```
## 🤖 For Agents The `asr.sh` command-line tool returns JSON by default when successful, making it easy to pipe into other tools or parse directly.
If the `SIC_API_KEY` is missing, the tool will provide a clear error message and a direct link to the signup page.