Quick start

This guide describes the current build.

Use hold-to-dictate for a first sentence. Then choose Hands-Free only if you want a session that stays open between phrases.

  1. Install and finish setup. Follow the installation guide. The first-run wizard has seven steps: welcome, how you will use Samsara, microphone, optional components, recognition quality, shortcuts, and done. Choose the microphone you will really use; the wizard will not let you continue until it hears a working one. The model download happens the first time you use it, and the wizard says so.
  2. Put the cursor in a text field. Open a blank note or another application where you can type.
  3. Hold Ctrl+Shift, speak, then release. That is the default Hold to Record binding. Settings → Shortcuts → Primary dictation changes it.
  4. Turn on Hands-Free. In Settings → Dictation, switch on Session button. Then in Settings → Shortcuts → Session button choose the button (Right Ctrl by default) and set its behaviour to toggle. The default is hold, which only listens while the button is down; toggle gives a session that stays open. Press the button once to start and once to stop. The older build names this Settings → Modes → Enable voice control.
  5. Commit a staged Hands-Free thought. In the Dictate lane, say “finish” as a complete utterance to paste the staged text and keep the session open. The commit word is one word, and changing it is a config-file setting (command_mode.dictate_commit_word). You can also press Ctrl+Space.
  6. Optional: talk to an app by name. newer than v0.30.0-beta.2 With wake activation on, saying “okay claude” focuses the Claude desktop app and starts dictating into it. Say “over” as the last word to send. “Over” is the send word of that wake profile; each profile has its own. See wake profiles.

Use the tray

Samsara stays available from its system-tray icon. Open the tray menu for Settings, the Tools windows, the command reference, and Something wrong?, which opens Settings → Help.

Find out what you can say

Say “what can I say” (also “help”). Samsara opens the command sheet for the focused app. The site’s command reference lists every phrase in this build; enabled packs and your configuration still affect what works on your computer. If Ava is on you can also ask “what commands do I have for” a goal, and she answers from the catalog without calling any model.

Next

Hands-Free and wake-word listening are separate. Read Hands-Free and wake before enabling the wake listener.