kyutai-tts-mcp

Local-only voice for any MCP client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.) via Kyutai Pocket TTS. No cloud, no API keys, no rate limits.

• 🇫🇷 French (Estelle) and 🇬🇧 English (Alba), plus 24 other Kyutai voices usable in both
• No PyTorch: runs on ONNX Runtime with int8 exports of Kyutai's 6-layer model
• TTFA ~20 ms, ~9× real-time on an Apple Silicon CPU, frame-by-frame streaming
• Pass language= per speak() call; models load lazily and cache
• Non-blocking speak(), gap-free playback via sounddevice write-mode
• ~160 MB venv, ~115 MB model per language, ~330 MB RAM

Install

uvx kyutai-tts-mcp --help

Or persistent:

uv tool install kyutai-tts-mcp

Then add to your MCP client's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kyutai-tts": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["kyutai-tts-mcp", "--language", "french"]
    }
  }
}

Replace french with english for your default language. Per-call language= overrides this default. Older names such as french_24l are accepted as aliases.

MCP tools

Configuration

The default language is set via --language (CLI) or KYUTAI_TTS_LANGUAGE (env var). Other knobs (all env):

• KYUTAI_TTS_VOICE — default voice name (estelle in French, alba in English; any Kyutai predefined voice works in both)
• KYUTAI_TTS_MAX_TOKENS — max tokens per generated chunk (default 50)

Voice cloning and the other pocket-tts languages (Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch) need PyTorch and were dropped in 0.9.0: use uvx "kyutai-tts-mcp<0.9" if you rely on them.

Claude Code users

If you're on Claude Code (CLI, desktop, or via Cursor), you can install the bundled plugin (MCP wiring + /voice-mode skill) in one shot:

/plugin marketplace add Vincweb/kyutai-tts-mcp
/plugin install kyutai-tts@vincweb-tools

See the main repo for architecture details, voice catalog, and a side-by-side comparison with voxtral-mcp.

Requirements

• macOS 13+ (Apple Silicon recommended; Intel should work with Python 3.11–3.13, untested)
• Python 3.11 – 3.14
• ~330 MB free RAM (~570 MB with both languages loaded)

License

MIT. The model weights are Kyutai's, under CC BY 4.0; the alba voice is by Alba McKenna, CC BY 4.0. See the Pocket TTS model card for Kyutai's terms of use.