Gladia CLI

Transcribe audio from your terminal with one install, one command, and no boilerplate

Transcribe audio from your terminal. One install, one command, no boilerplate.

The Gladia CLI wraps the Gladia speech-to-text API for terminals, shell scripts, and pipelines — 100+ languages, speaker diarization, and code switching in a single command.

Get your API key from the Gladia dashboard before running your first transcription.

Why use the CLI

• One command away — Install the CLI, set your API key, run gladia transcribe.
• Flexible output — Get plain text, JSON, SRT, or VTT straight to stdout.
• Full feature set — Speaker diarization, multilingual configuration, and model selection (solaria-1, solaria-3).
• Files or URLs — Transcribe a local recording or a remote link, with no download step.
• Pipe-friendly — Machine-readable output for shell scripts and CI pipelines.

Install

# macOS & Linux
curl -fsSL https://github.com/gladiaio/gladia-cli/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

# Windows (PowerShell)
powershell -c "irm https://github.com/gladiaio/gladia-cli/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iex"

Other platforms and binaries are available on GitHub releases.

Quick start

gladia auth set your_key

gladia transcribe meeting.wav               # transcript to stdout
gladia transcribe podcast.mp3 -o srt        # subtitles instead
gladia transcribe call.wav --diarize        # label who spoke when
gladia languages                            # list supported language codes

API key setup

Provide your API key in one of three ways (checked in this order):

export GLADIA_API_KEY=your_key              # 1. environment variable
gladia auth set your_key                    # 2. saved to ~/.gladia (mode 0600)
gladia transcribe meeting.wav --gladia-key your_key   # 3. per-command flag

Everyday examples

# Transcribe a local file or a remote URL
gladia transcribe meeting.wav
gladia transcribe https://example.com/audio.mp3 -o json

# Narrow language detection to a shortlist
gladia transcribe podcast.mp3 --language en,fr,de

# Mixed-language audio: re-detect on every utterance
gladia transcribe mixed.mp3 --code-switching --language en,fr

# Who spoke when, as subtitles
gladia transcribe call.wav --diarize -o srt

# Pick a model
gladia transcribe podcast.mp3 --model solaria-3 --language en

# Machine-readable output in a pipeline
gladia transcribe interview.mp3 -o json | jq '.transcription'

Commands

Command	Description
transcribe <file-or-url>	Transcribe an audio file or URL
auth set <key>	Save API key to ~/.gladia
languages	List supported ISO 639-1 codes
completion <shell>	Generate shell tab completion (bash, zsh, fish, powershell)

Output formats

Use -o or --output to control how the transcript is returned:

Format	Description
text	Plain transcript (default)
json	Structured JSON transcript
json-full	Full API response as JSON
srt	SubRip subtitles
vtt	WebVTT subtitles

Transcription options

Flag	Default	Description
-o, --output	text	Output format: text, json, json-full, srt, vtt
--language	—	Expected language(s), comma-separated (en or en,fr,de); narrows detection
--cs, --code-switching	off	Re-detect language on each utterance (mixed-language audio; solaria-1 only)
--diarize	off	Identify speakers in the transcript
--model	—	STT model: solaria-1 or solaria-3. Solaria-3 accepts at most one --language (en, fr, de, es, or it) and does not support code switching.
-v, --verbose	off	Show progress while polling

Global flag (any command): --gladia-key — API key if not set in the environment or ~/.gladia.

Language

Goal	What to run
Auto-detect	gladia transcribe <file>
Constrain detection	--language en,fr,de
Code switching	--code-switching (+ optional --language hints)

• --language limits which language(s) Gladia considers. A comma-separated list is a hint list, not per-utterance switching.
• --code-switching turns on per-utterance language detection. Add --language to restrict which languages may appear. Not available with solaria-3.

Diarization

Use --diarize when you need who spoke when. Speaker labels are included in the output (for example, Speaker 0: …).

gladia transcribe meeting.wav --diarize
gladia transcribe panel.mp3 --diarize -o srt

Shell completion

When you install via install.sh or install.ps1, the script offers to configure tab completion for your shell. To skip the prompt (for example in CI), set GLADIA_NO_COMPLETION_PROMPT=1.

You can also set up completion manually:

# bash
source <(gladia completion bash)

# zsh
mkdir -p ~/.zsh/completions
gladia completion zsh > ~/.zsh/completions/_gladia

# fish
mkdir -p ~/.config/fish/completions
gladia completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/gladia.fish

Run gladia completion --help for full instructions per shell.

Next steps

Get your API key

Create an API key on the Gladia dashboard

Gladia CLI on GitHub

Source code, issues, and releases

Pre-recorded STT quickstart

Learn more about Gladia transcription features