🔊 say-it · Pronounce
Stop saying "kub-cuttle". One Bash command pronounces 1665+ developer jargon names — with cited sources.
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🚀 Try it in 30 seconds
git clone https://github.com/anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce.git
cd pronounce && ./install.sh
say-it kubectl
That's it. Now try say-it GIF, say-it nginx, say-it Pydantic, say-it --why JSON, or say-it quiz for a 10-question challenge. Linux users: install espeak-ng (sudo apt install espeak-ng) and the CLI just works. Windows: same CLI under WSL or git-bash + PowerShell. Or skip install and use the browser at pronounce.renlab.ai.
⭐ If say-it kubectl saves you one cringey standup moment — star the repo. It nudges more devs to contribute their favorite mispronounced project name.
What you're actually getting
- 1665 entries, every one sourced. Confidence-tagged (
creator-clarified / community-consensus / contested) with a citable URL where one exists. Wilhite said GIF is "jif" at the 2013 Webby Awards. Crockford says JSON is "JAY-son" (RailsConf 2009). RFC 7519 says JWT is "jot". The dictionary cites them.
- Multi-reading audio. For words where the debate is real — GIF, SQL, GUI, char, regex — the CLI chains the alternates after the primary with a spoken "or:" so you hear the debate without staring at the terminal.
--solo skips the tail once you've internalized it.
- Zero deps. ~250 lines of Bash. No npm, no sudo, no surprises. Wraps the
say engine that's already on your Mac. Ships a Claude Code skill and an MCP server so your AI answers "how do you pronounce X?" with audio, not a phonetic guess.
$ say-it --why JSON
word JSON
ipa /ˈdʒeɪsən/
respelling_us jay son
source Douglas Crockford (RailsConf 2009)
url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C-JoyNuQJs
Why not just Google?
Because Google gives you 47 Reddit arguments and a YouTube clip you have to unmute. IPA gives you /ˈkuːb kənˌtroʊl/ — a reference, not a teacher.
You don't need a phonetic transcription. You need to hear the word. Twice. Maybe three times. Done.
say-it ships a community-maintained dictionary of how engineers actually say the names that trip everyone up — and feeds the intended respelling to your OS's text-to-speech engine, so kubectl comes out as koob-control, not whatever your computer guessed from the letters.
Famous moments
Some pronunciations aren't opinions — the creators settled them. The dictionary cites every one:
Every dictionary entry includes a source_url. Run say-it --why <word> to see it.
Install (macOS)
brew install anzy-renlab-ai/tap/say-it # Homebrew
Or the "Try it in 30 seconds" block above. ./install.sh drops:
- the CLI at
~/.local/bin/say-it,
- the pronunciation dictionary at
~/.local/share/say-it/pronunciations.tsv,
- if you use Claude Code, a
pronounce-word skill at ~/.claude/skills/pronounce-word/ so any "how do you say X?" prompt to your AI gets answered with audio instead of IPA,
- the same skill into
~/.agents/skills/ (Codex CLI) and ~/.kiro/skills/ (Kiro) when those dirs exist — it's the cross-tool Agent Skills standard.
Make sure ~/.local/bin is on your $PATH. Linux also works — install espeak-ng (sudo apt install espeak-ng / brew install espeak-ng). Windows: WSL or git-bash + PowerShell. Or skip install entirely with the browser version at pronounce.renlab.ai.
Usage
say-it kubectl # primary × 3, then "or: <alt>" for each alternate
say-it --solo kubectl # primary only — silence the "or:" tail
say-it --alt GIF # focus on the first alternate
say-it --alt 2 GUI # focus on the Nth alternate (1-indexed)
say-it --all SQL # primary AND every alternate, each repeated
say-it --no-dict kubectl # bypass the dictionary entirely
say-it --why JSON # show IPA, source URL, category, confidence
say-it list # every word in the dictionary
say-it search redis # grep the dictionary (case-insensitive)
say-it -n 5 Pydantic # 5 repetitions instead of 3
say-it -r 110 Knative # slower (110 wpm; default is 130)
say-it -o /tmp/word.aiff Postgres # save to file instead of playing
say-it --list # all macOS voices
The default voice is Samantha (General American). Pass -v <voice> for any other macOS voice — but the dictionary is GenAm-only, by design.
Claude Code integration
You: kubectl 怎么读？
Claude: 🔊 (plays "koob-control" three times)
/ˈkuːb kənˌtroʊl/ — "KOOB-control". Kelsey Hightower says it
this way (KubeCon talk). "Cube-cuddle" is an alternate —
try `say-it --alt kubectl` to hear it.
Once installed, the pronounce-word skill auto-triggers on:
X 怎么读 / X 怎么发音 / 读一下 Xhow do you pronounce X / pronounce X / how do you say X
Your AI replies with sound, not just a phonetic guess. Skill file: skills/pronounce-word/SKILL.md.
Not on Claude? Same skill drops into Codex CLI (codex plugin marketplace add anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce) and Kiro (~/.kiro/skills/), and the MCP server covers Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue, Zed, Cline & friends — full matrix in integrations/.
VS Code extension
Hover over any tech word in any file — see the IPA, hear the pronunciation. Same 1665-entry dictionary as the CLI, JSON-bundled at build (zero runtime parse cost).
# Cursor / VSCodium / Zed / Gitpod / Theia / code-server (Open VSX)
code --install-extension sayit.pronounce
# or the listing: https://open-vsx.org/extension/sayit/pronounce
Now live on Microsoft Marketplace too: ext install sayit.pronounce in VS Code. See marketplace listing.
- Hover over
kubectl, YAML, Ghostty, wagmi… → tooltip with IPA + 🔊 Play + ★ Star link.
- ⌘⇧' — speak selection.
- Status bar
🔊 sayit — click to speak the current selection.
- Welcome walkthrough — 4-step onboarding on first install.
Pronounce: Search dictionary… — fuzzy-find all 1665 entries.
Source: integrations/vscode/. Cross-platform as of v0.3 — macOS say, Linux espeak-ng, Windows PowerShell.
Chrome / Edge / Brave extension
Click any tech word on any webpage → popup with IPA + audio. Same 1665-entry dictionary; same Web Speech API as pronounce.renlab.ai. Sideload only for now (not yet on Chrome Web Store).
Download pronounce-chrome-0.1.0.zip from the latest release → unzip → chrome://extensions/ → Developer mode → Load unpacked.
Source: integrations/chrome/.
How the dictionary works
data/pronunciations.tsv is the single source of truth — tab-separated, 1665 entries, covering:
- Cloud / DevOps:
kubectl, nginx, Kubernetes, helm, Istio, Envoy, Prometheus, Grafana, Terraform, Argo, Knative, etcd, containerd, runc, Podman, ...
- Languages / Frameworks:
Django, Vue, Vite, Pydantic, Bun, Deno, Hugo, Hono, Caddy, Svelte, Astro, Pinia, ...
- Databases:
PostgreSQL, Postgres, SQLite, MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, Ceph, ScyllaDB, ClickHouse, DuckDB, ...
- CS jargon / acronyms:
GIF, JSON, SQL, GUI, GNU, char, regex, sudo, tmux, chmod, WYSIWYG, ASCII, enum, NaN, SaaS, PaaS, ...
- Distros / tools:
Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Nix, LaTeX, TeX, emacs, zsh, ...
Each entry has 10 columns: word | ipa | phon_us | alt_ipa | alt_phon_us | source_url | source_label | category | confidence | notes. The phon_us column is Apple's Speech Synthesis phoneme set, injected into say via [[inpt PHON]]…[[inpt TEXT]]. This is what gives the intended reading rather than whatever the TTS would have inferred from the letters.
Local override: drop a ~/.config/say-it/pronunciations.local.tsv and it takes precedence.
What works today
- ✅ macOS — any word, via the built-in
say engine. Zero dependencies.
- ✅ 993 project / product / jargon entries with cited sources.
- ✅ Audible multi-reading awareness — contested words audibly chain alternates with "or:".
- ✅
--alt [N], --all, --solo, --why, --json, --md, --no-dict, list, search, quiz, repl, stream, doctor, export, benchmark, badge, cheatsheet.
- ✅ Claude Code skill + MCP server for AI-side pronunciation questions.
- ✅ Browser PWA — installable, offline-capable, instant search, voice-mic search, interactive quiz.
- ✅ Editor integrations — Raycast, Alfred, VS Code, Cursor, Codex, Kiro, Continue.
- ✅ 🌐 Live site — pronounce.renlab.ai (every word browsable, audio, source citation) + /zh (Chinese landing).
What's coming
See DESIGN.md for the architecture.
- 🪟 Windows support via PowerShell +
System.Speech.SpeechSynthesizer, same CLI flags.
- ☁️ Cloud TTS (opt-in ElevenLabs / OpenAI) for the names native TTS still mangles.
- 🐧 Linux backend (
espeak-ng, then cloud).
- 🔄
say-it update to pull the latest dictionary without reinstalling.
- 📚 Anki export for vocabulary drills.
Contributing
Two things we want most:
- Pronunciation entries. Open a PR adding a row to
data/pronunciations.tsv. Required columns: word, ipa, phon_us. Highly preferred: source_url (creator interview, conf talk, official FAQ — anything verifiable). Contested readings are welcome; put the rival in alt_* columns and we'll wire --alt through.
- Non-Mac backends. Windows and Linux are top priority. See
DESIGN.md §Backends.
Keep it tiny. Keep it dep-free where possible. Keep the defaults opinionated (3 reps, GenAm, Samantha voice).
⭐ Support — start with a star
The dictionary is free and MIT. The single highest-leverage thing you can do is star the repo — it's the signal that pulls in more contributors, more PRs, more creator-clarified entries.
Optional, if it's saved you real standup pain:
Dollars cover hosting (Vercel/Cloudflare/Open VSX), domain renewals, MiniMax narration credits for promo videos, and time to track down creator citations for new entries.
Contributors
Every entry, source upgrade, and skill fix counts. Open a PR — your face shows up here.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
IPA is a reference. Audio is a teacher.
