Live Transcribe — Read

Read the most recent transcription file from a live-transcribe session.

Finding the latest transcription

The real-time transcript lives in the log file, not the .txt file. The log updates continuously during recording.

# Primary source — real-time log (updates live during recording)
cat /tmp/realtime-transcribe.log 2>/dev/null

# Extract only the spoken text (strip metadata lines)
grep '^\[committed\]' /tmp/realtime-transcribe.log 2>/dev/null | sed 's/^\[committed\] //'

The .txt file (/tmp/transcribe-*.txt) may contain a final dump but does NOT update in real-time. Always prefer the log file.

Check if transcription is still active

if test -f /tmp/realtime-transcribe.pid && kill -0 $(cat /tmp/realtime-transcribe.pid) 2>/dev/null; then
  echo "ACTIVE — file is still being updated"
else
  echo "FINISHED — file is complete"
fi

Read the file

Use grep to extract committed text from the log, stripping [committed] prefixes. Skip the first JSON status line and [session started] markers.

What to tell the user

1. The transcription text
2. Whether it's still being updated or finished
3. If still active: they can check again later for more content
4. If no files found: tell them no transcription has been recorded yet

Working with the transcription

The user may ask to do things with the text beyond just reading it:

• Summarize, translate, extract action items, format, etc.
• The text is available in the main context after reading — proceed with whatever the user asks