Local speech-to-text for Go
OpenAI-compatible /v1/audio/transcriptions and /v1/audio/translations powered by Bucky (whisper.cpp). Transcribe files, translate to English, stream live audio, and run models from tiny to large-v3-turbo with Metal, CUDA, and Vulkan — without sending audio to the cloud.
$ git clone https://github.com/ardanlabs/kronk.git
$ cd kronk
$ make example-bucky
✓ installed whisper.cpp libraries
✓ downloaded ggml-tiny.bin
- text : And so my fellow Americans…Why Bucky
Built for production-minded Go teams
Bucky brings local speech-to-text into the Kronk stack so Go teams can transcribe and translate audio on their own hardware — without CGo or a cloud STT vendor.
- 01
Stay local
Transcribe and translate audio on your machines. Keep sensitive speech data inside your network.
- 02
Familiar endpoints
OpenAI-compatible /v1/audio/transcriptions and /v1/audio/translations so existing clients and agents can plug in with less friction.
- 03
Hardware accelerated
Metal, CUDA, and Vulkan acceleration for whisper.cpp models from tiny through large-v3-turbo.
- 04
Go-native path
No CGo. Pure-Go WAV, MP3, and FLAC decoding, plus a 1-to-1 whisper.h-style API for in-process use.
What you can do
Speech workflows Bucky is built for
Use the Go SDK inside your process, or expose the same capabilities through Kronk’s OpenAI-compatible audio APIs and Browser UI Translator.
File transcription
Upload or decode WAV, MP3, or FLAC and get a transcript back through the SDK or HTTP API.
Translate to English
Use /v1/audio/translations (or SDK translate mode) to turn supported source speech into English.
Live streaming
Feed audio blocks and consume partial and final transcript events as speech arrives.
Multi-speaker channels
Transcribe separate audio channels as separate speakers for meetings and call recordings.
Capabilities
What you get
whisper.cpp powered
Production-minded bindings for local transcription with models sized for your hardware and workload.
Streaming & VAD
Live streaming transcription with voice-activity detection — including Silero VAD for cleaner speech boundaries.
Diarization-ready
Channel-separated diarization in the SDK so multi-speaker recordings can map to separate speakers.
Flexible outputs
Return plain text, JSON, verbose JSON, SRT, or WebVTT — including optional word-level timestamps.
Works with Kronk server
Use Bucky through the Kronk model server, Browser UI Translator, or the Go SDK inside your process.
No cloud required
Run inference where your audio already is — laptops, workstations, or private infrastructure.
Get started
Run Bucky with Kronk
Install Kronk, pull whisper.cpp libraries and a model, then run the Bucky example — or hit the transcriptions API once the model server is up.
Install Kronk
brew install ardanlabs/kronk/kronk
# or: go install github.com/ardanlabs/kronk/cmd/kronk@latestInstall whisper libraries + a model
kronk bucky libs
kronk bucky model pull tinyRun the example
git clone https://github.com/ardanlabs/kronk.git
cd kronk
make example-buckyOr transcribe through the API
kronk server start
curl -X POST http://localhost:11435/v1/audio/transcriptions \
-F file=@samples/jfk.wav \
-F model=tiny \
-F response_format=jsonDeeper docs: Bucky manual chapter · Kronk on GitHub · Bucky SDK repo
Platforms
Where Bucky runs
Compatible whisper.cpp library bundles are downloaded per host. Use the CLI as the source of truth for supported combinations on your install.
macOS
CPU amd64, arm64 · GPU Metal on Apple Silicon
Linux
CPU amd64, arm64 · GPU CUDA and Vulkan
Windows
CPU amd64 · GPU CUDA
Models
Size the model to the job
GGML Whisper models from the bundled catalog — pull what you need with kronk bucky model pull.
tiny / tiny.en
75 MBFastest path for prototyping and short clips
base / base.en
142 MBStrong speed-to-quality balance for everyday use
small / small.en
466 MBBetter accuracy when latency still matters
medium / large-v3-turbo
1.5 GBHigher accuracy without always paying full large-model cost
large-v3
2.9 GBHighest accuracy multilingual transcription when quality comes first
Related tooling
More in the ecosystem
Build AI systems you can own
Talk with Ardan Labs about local inference, private AI infrastructure, and production systems beyond API prototypes.