Saidwire MCP server

Speech-to-text for Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code and any other Model Context Protocol client. Ask your assistant to transcribe a recording on your computer or at a public URL, and get plain text, subtitles (SRT/VTT) or word-level timestamps back.

"Transcribe ~/Downloads/standup.m4a and list the action items." "Make subtitles for https://example.com/talk.mp3 and save them to ~/talk.srt."

• English speech-to-text, punctuated and capitalised.
• WAV, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Opus, WebM, M4A/MP4 and AAC, up to 100 MB / 60 minutes per file.
• $0.30 per audio hour. New keys include 120 free hours, no card needed.
• Built and maintained by Saidwire, the company that runs the service.

1. Get a free API key

Sign up at saidwire.com/dev and copy your key (it starts with sk_live_).

2. Add the server to your client

You need uv (it provides uvx; no Node or npm needed):

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh      # macOS / Linux
# Windows: powershell -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

Claude Desktop

Settings → Developer → Edit Config (claude_desktop_config.json), then restart Claude:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "saidwire": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["saidwire-mcp"],
      "env": { "SAIDWIRE_API_KEY": "sk_live_your_key_here" }
    }
  }
}

If Claude says it cannot find uvx, replace "uvx" with the full path from which uvx (it usually ends in /.local/bin/uvx). Desktop apps do not always see your shell's PATH.

Or double-click saidwire-mcp.mcpb (from the GitHub release) to install it as a Claude Desktop extension; Claude asks for the key.

Claude Code

claude mcp add saidwire --scope user -e SAIDWIRE_API_KEY=sk_live_your_key_here -- uvx saidwire-mcp

Cursor

~/.cursor/mcp.json (all projects) or .cursor/mcp.json (one project):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "saidwire": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["saidwire-mcp"],
      "env": { "SAIDWIRE_API_KEY": "sk_live_your_key_here" }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json: the same mcpServers block as Cursor.

VS Code (Copilot agent mode)

.vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "inputs": [
    { "type": "promptString", "id": "saidwire-key", "description": "Saidwire API key", "password": true }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "saidwire": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["saidwire-mcp"],
      "env": { "SAIDWIRE_API_KEY": "${input:saidwire-key}" }
    }
  }
}

Any other client

Command uvx saidwire-mcp (stdio transport), with SAIDWIRE_API_KEY in its environment. pip install saidwire-mcp also works and installs a saidwire-mcp command.

Tools

• format: text (plain transcript), json (transcript, utterances and per-word timestamps), srt or vtt (subtitles).
• include_words: add per-word start and end times to text or json output.
• output_path: also save the result to this absolute path (for example ~/talk.srt).

Settings

Privacy

The server runs on your computer. It reads only the files you ask it to transcribe, sends the audio to the Saidwire API over HTTPS, and returns the text to your client. Your key stays in your local client config. See "Data handling" in the API docs for how the service treats audio.

Troubleshooting

• "SAIDWIRE_API_KEY is not set": add the env block shown above and restart the client.
• "API key was not accepted" (401): copy the whole key, including the part after the dot.
• "included hours are used up" (402): add hours at saidwire.com/dev.
• "web page, not an audio file": transcribe_url needs a direct link to the audio file, not a page that plays it.
• Anything else: support@saidwire.com (include the request_id from the error).

The API

This server uses the pre-recorded endpoint POST https://api.saidwire.com/v1/listen. Saidwire also offers real-time streaming over WebSocket (final transcripts about 35 ms after end of speech) and an OpenAI-compatible POST /v1/audio/transcriptions. Docs: saidwire.com/docs/api.

Development

uv venv && uv pip install -e ".[test]"
.venv/bin/pytest                                   # offline unit tests + MCP stdio no-key test
SAIDWIRE_API_KEY=sk_live_... SAIDWIRE_TEST_AUDIO=/abs/path/clip.wav .venv/bin/pytest -m live -v

License

MIT