Command-Line Interface

Speech-to-Text Commands

Transcribe audio files, URLs, microphone, and stdin with the dg CLI.

Transcribe a File

$dg listen audio.mp3

Transcribe a URL

$dg listen https://example.com/audio.mp3

Live Microphone

Stream from your default microphone:

$dg listen --mic

Press Ctrl+C to stop.

stdin / Piped Input

Pipe audio from another tool:

$ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -f wav - | dg listen -

Options

Output Format

$dg listen audio.mp3 -o json    # JSON (default for pipes)
$dg listen audio.mp3 -o yaml    # YAML
$dg listen audio.mp3 -o table   # ASCII table
$dg listen audio.mp3 -o text    # Plain text transcript

Model Selection

$dg listen audio.mp3 --model nova-3    # Default streaming model
$dg listen audio.mp3 --model nova-2    # General purpose
$dg listen audio.mp3 --model whisper   # Whisper model

Features

$dg listen audio.mp3 --diarize          # Speaker diarization
$dg listen audio.mp3 --smart-format     # Smart formatting
$dg listen audio.mp3 --summarize        # Generate summary
$dg listen audio.mp3 --topics           # Topic detection
$dg listen audio.mp3 --sentiment        # Sentiment analysis

Subtitles

$dg listen audio.mp3 --webvtt           # WebVTT captions
$dg listen audio.mp3 --srt              # SRT subtitles
$dg listen audio.mp3 --vtt              # Legacy VTT format

Language

$dg listen audio.mp3 --language en-US   # English (US)
$dg listen audio.mp3 --language es     # Spanish
$dg listen audio.mp3 --language de     # German

Custom Parameters

Pass any Deepgram API parameter:

$dg listen audio.mp3 --punctuate true --interim true

Command Alias

dg transcribe is an alias for dg listen:

$dg transcribe audio.mp3