LocalAI [bot]andEttore Di Giacinto 4912c9b73a feat(parakeet-cpp): add NVIDIA NeMo Parakeet ASR backend (parakeet.cpp) (#10084)
* feat(parakeet-cpp): L0 backend scaffold, LoadModel + AudioTranscription (text)

Add a Go gRPC backend that bridges LocalAI to parakeet.cpp via the flat
C-API (parakeet_capi.h), loaded with purego (cgo-less, mirrors the
whisper / vibevoice-cpp backends).

L0 scope:
- main.go: dlopen libparakeet.so (override via PARAKEET_LIBRARY), register
  the C-API entry points, start the gRPC server.
- goparakeetcpp.go: Load (parakeet_capi_load), AudioTranscription
  (parakeet_capi_transcribe_path, decoder=0 = per-arch default head),
  Free, serialized through base.SingleThread since the C engine is a
  thread-unsafe singleton. char* returns are bound as uintptr so the
  malloc'd buffer is freed via parakeet_capi_free_string after copy.
- AudioTranscriptionStream returns a clear "not implemented in L0" error
  (closes the channel so the server doesn't hang), wired in L2.
- Makefile: clone-at-pin + cmake (PARAKEET_VERSION for bump_deps.sh),
  with a local-symlink dev shortcut; run.sh / package.sh mirror whisper.
- Test auto-skips without PARAKEET_BACKEND_TEST_MODEL/_WAV fixtures.

Builds clean (CGO_ENABLED=0), gofmt clean, test passes. The single
unsafeptr vet note in goStringFromCPtr is documented and matches the
whisper backend's tolerated pattern.

Word/segment timestamps (L1) and cache-aware streaming (L2) follow.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* feat(parakeet-cpp): L1 word/segment timestamps via transcribe_path_json

AudioTranscription now calls parakeet_capi_transcribe_path_json and shapes
the per-word / per-token timestamps into the TranscriptResult:

- Bind parakeet_capi_transcribe_path_json (purego, char* as uintptr like
  the other returns) and register it in main.go + the test loader.
- Parse the JSON document ({"text","words":[{w,start,end,conf}],
  "tokens":[{id,t,conf}]}) into typed structs.
- Synthesise a single whole-clip segment (parakeet emits no native segment
  boundaries) spanning the first word start to the last word end; token ids
  populate Segment.Tokens.
- Attach word-level timings only when timestamp_granularities=["word"],
  matching the OpenAI API (segment-level default). secondsToNanos mirrors
  the whisper backend's nanosecond convention.

Verified end-to-end against tdt_ctc-110m (f16): both the default and
word-granularity specs pass; builds clean, gofmt clean, vet shows only the
one documented unsafeptr note shared with the whisper backend.

Cache-aware streaming (L2) follows.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* feat(parakeet-cpp): L2 cache-aware streaming with EOU segmentation

Wire AudioTranscriptionStream to the streaming RNN-T C-API:

- Bind parakeet_capi_stream_{begin,feed,finalize,free}; feed takes 16 kHz
  mono float PCM ([]float32 via purego) and writes *eou_out on <EOU>/<EOB>.
- Decode opts.Dst to 16 kHz mono PCM (utils.AudioToWav + go-audio, same as
  the whisper backend), feed it in 1 s chunks, and emit each newly-finalized
  text run as a TranscriptStreamResponse delta.
- <EOU>/<EOB> events close the current segment; a closing FinalResult carries
  the full transcript plus the per-utterance segments (with a whole-clip
  fallback segment when no EOU fired).
- stream_begin returns 0 for non-streaming models, surfaced as a clear
  error instead of an empty stream. Honours context cancellation between
  chunks. Frees every malloc'd delta and the session.

Verified end-to-end against realtime_eou_120m-v1 (f16): the streamed
transcript matches the offline 110m reference word-for-word, deltas
reconstruct the final text, and the spec passes alongside the offline
specs. Builds clean, gofmt clean, vet shows only the shared documented
unsafeptr note.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* feat(parakeet-cpp): L3 register backend in build/CI/gallery (whisper parity)

Wire the new Go gRPC parakeet-cpp backend (parakeet.cpp ggml port of NVIDIA
NeMo Parakeet ASR) into LocalAI's build/CI/gallery surfaces, matching the
existing ggml whisper Go backend 1:1.

- .github/backend-matrix.yml: add 11 linux entries + 1 darwin entry mirroring
  every whisper build (cpu amd64/arm64, intel sycl f32/f16, vulkan amd64/arm64,
  nvidia cuda-12, nvidia cuda-13, nvidia-l4t-arm64, nvidia-l4t-cuda-13-arm64,
  rocm hipblas, metal-darwin-arm64), all on ./backend/Dockerfile.golang with
  backend: "parakeet-cpp" and -*-parakeet-cpp tag-suffixes.
- scripts/changed-backends.js: explicit inferBackendPath branch resolving
  parakeet-cpp to backend/go/parakeet-cpp/ before the generic golang branch.
- .github/workflows/bump_deps.yaml: track the PARAKEET_VERSION pin in
  backend/go/parakeet-cpp/Makefile (repo mudler/parakeet.cpp, branch master).
- backend/index.yaml: add &parakeetcpp meta + latest/development image entries
  for every matrix tag-suffix.
- Makefile: add backends/parakeet-cpp to .NOTPARALLEL, BACKEND_PARAKEET_CPP
  definition, docker-build target eval, and test-extra-backend-parakeet-cpp-
  transcription target (mirrors test-extra-backend-whisper-transcription).

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* feat(parakeet-cpp): L4 gallery importer for parakeet GGUFs

Add ParakeetCppImporter so parakeet.cpp GGUFs auto-detect on /import-model
and route to the parakeet-cpp backend (it also surfaces in /backends/known,
which drives the import dropdown).

- Match is narrow: a .gguf whose name carries a parakeet architecture token
  (<arch>-<size>-<quant>.gguf, e.g. tdt_ctc-110m-f16.gguf, rnnt-0.6b-q4_k.gguf,
  realtime_eou_120m-v1-q8_0.gguf), a direct URL to one, or
  preferences.backend="parakeet-cpp". It deliberately does NOT claim arbitrary
  llama-style GGUFs, nor the upstream nvidia/parakeet-* NeMo repos (.nemo, not
  runnable here).
- Registered in the ASR batch BEFORE LlamaCPPImporter so its GGUFs aren't
  swallowed by the generic .gguf importer.
- Import nests files under parakeet-cpp/models/<name>/, defaults to the
  smallest quant (q4_k, near-lossless on parakeet) with a size-ladder
  fallback, and honours preferences.quantizations / name / description.

Tested with synthetic HF details (no network): metadata, positive matches
(HF repo, direct URL, preference), narrowness negatives (llama GGUF, NeMo
repo), and import (default quant, override, direct URL), 9 specs pass,
build/vet/gofmt clean.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* docs(parakeet-cpp): document the parakeet-cpp transcription backend

Add parakeet-cpp to the audio-to-text backend list and a dedicated usage
section: direct GGUF import (auto-detects to the backend), model YAML,
word-level timestamps via timestamp_granularities[]=word, and cache-aware
streaming with the realtime_eou model. Points at the mudler/parakeet-cpp-gguf
collection repo.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* ci(parakeet-cpp): wire transcription gRPC e2e test into test-extra

The L3 commit added the test-extra-backend-parakeet-cpp-transcription
Makefile target but never invoked it in CI. Mirror the whisper job:

- Add a parakeet-cpp output to detect-changes (emitted by
  changed-backends.js from the matrix entry).
- Add tests-parakeet-cpp-grpc-transcription, gated on the parakeet-cpp
  path filter / run-all, building the backend image and running the
  transcription e2e against tdt_ctc-110m + the JFK clip.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* style(parakeet-cpp): drop em dashes from comments and docs

Replace em dashes with plain punctuation in the backend comments, the
importer, package.sh, and the audio-to-text docs section (and use "and"
instead of the multiplication sign). No behaviour change.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* feat(gallery): add parakeet-cpp f16 models to the model gallery

Add the 10 NVIDIA Parakeet models (f16, the recommended quality/speed
default) as gallery entries that install on the parakeet-cpp backend from
mudler/parakeet-cpp-gguf: tdt_ctc-110m/1.1b, tdt-0.6b-v2/v3, tdt-1.1b,
ctc-0.6b/1.1b, rnnt-0.6b/1.1b, and the cache-aware streaming
realtime_eou_120m-v1. Each pins the file sha256 and routes transcript
usecases to the backend.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* fix(parakeet-cpp): satisfy govet lint + bump PARAKEET_VERSION

- goparakeetcpp.go: //nolint:govet on the C-owned-pointer unsafe.Pointer
  conversion (golangci-lint reports new-only issues, so unlike the whisper
  backend's identical line this one is flagged).
- Makefile: bump PARAKEET_VERSION to the current parakeet.cpp master commit
  (the previous pin's commit no longer exists after upstream history was
  squashed), so the backend image clone/build resolves again.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* fix(parakeet-cpp): pin PARAKEET_VERSION to a tag-stable commit

The previous SHA pin was orphaned when parakeet.cpp's single-commit master
was amended/force-pushed, so the backend image clone (git fetch <sha>) failed
across every build variant. Repoint to 845c29e, which upstream now keeps
permanently fetchable via the `localai-backend-pin` tag, so future upstream
amends no longer break the backend build.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* fix(parakeet-cpp): init the ggml submodule in the backend image clone

The backend Dockerfile clones parakeet.cpp at PARAKEET_VERSION with a shallow
fetch + checkout but never initialised submodules, so third_party/ggml was
empty and the parakeet.cpp cmake build failed at
`add_subdirectory(third_party/ggml)` (CMakeLists.txt:53) on every build
variant. Add `git submodule update --init --recursive --depth 1
--single-branch` after checkout, mirroring the whisper backend. Verified
locally: clone + submodule + cmake configure now succeeds.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* fix(parakeet-cpp): statically link ggml into libparakeet.so

The shared libparakeet.so linked ggml's shared libs (libggml*.so), but the
package only ships libparakeet.so, so at runtime dlopen failed with
"libggml.so.0: cannot open shared object file" (the e2e transcription test
panicked on load). Build ggml static + PIC (BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF,
CMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE=ON) so libparakeet.so embeds ggml and depends
only on system libs already present in the runtime image. Verified locally:
ldd shows no libggml dependency.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

* fix(parakeet-cpp): non-streaming fallback in AudioTranscriptionStream

The e2e streaming test ran AudioTranscriptionStream against tdt_ctc-110m
(not a cache-aware streaming model), so stream_begin returned 0 and the call
errored. Per LocalAI's streaming contract (and the whisper backend), a
non-streaming model should fall back to a single offline transcription
emitted as one delta plus a closing FinalResult. Do that instead of erroring,
so the streaming endpoint works for every parakeet model. Verified locally:
the streaming spec passes against the non-streaming 110m model via fallback.

Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>

---------

Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>
Co-authored-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>
2026-05-30 14:46:10 +02:00
2026-04-08 19:23:16 +02:00
2025-02-15 18:17:15 +01:00
2023-05-04 15:01:29 +02:00




LocalAI stars LocalAI License

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mudler%2FLocalAI | Trendshift

LocalAI is the open-source AI engine. Run any model - LLMs, vision, voice, image, video - on any hardware. No GPU required.

  • Drop-in API compatibility — OpenAI, Anthropic, ElevenLabs APIs
  • 36+ backends — llama.cpp, vLLM, transformers, whisper, diffusers, MLX...
  • Any hardware — NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Apple Silicon, Vulkan, or CPU-only
  • Multi-user ready — API key auth, user quotas, role-based access
  • Built-in AI agents — autonomous agents with tool use, RAG, MCP, and skills
  • Privacy-first — your data never leaves your infrastructure

Created by Ettore Di Giacinto and maintained by the LocalAI team.

📖 Documentation | 💬 Discord | 💻 Quickstart | 🖼️ Models | ❓FAQ

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https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/08cbb692-57da-48f7-963d-2e7b43883c18

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User and auth

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Fine-tuning and Quantization

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WebRTC

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ed88e34c-fed3-4b83-8a67-4716a9feeb7b

Quickstart

macOS

Download LocalAI for macOS

Note: The DMG is not signed by Apple. After installing, run: sudo xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/LocalAI.app. See #6268 for details.

Containers (Docker, podman, ...)

Already ran LocalAI before? Use docker start -i local-ai to restart an existing container.

CPU only:

docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 localai/localai:latest

NVIDIA GPU:

# CUDA 13
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --gpus all localai/localai:latest-gpu-nvidia-cuda-13

# CUDA 12
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --gpus all localai/localai:latest-gpu-nvidia-cuda-12

# NVIDIA Jetson ARM64 (CUDA 12, for AGX Orin and similar)
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --gpus all localai/localai:latest-nvidia-l4t-arm64

# NVIDIA Jetson ARM64 (CUDA 13, for DGX Spark)
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --gpus all localai/localai:latest-nvidia-l4t-arm64-cuda-13

AMD GPU (ROCm):

docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --device=/dev/kfd --device=/dev/dri --group-add=video localai/localai:latest-gpu-hipblas

Intel GPU (oneAPI):

docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --device=/dev/dri/card1 --device=/dev/dri/renderD128 localai/localai:latest-gpu-intel

Vulkan GPU:

docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 localai/localai:latest-gpu-vulkan

Loading models

# From the model gallery (see available models with `local-ai models list` or at https://models.localai.io)
local-ai run llama-3.2-1b-instruct:q4_k_m
# From Huggingface
local-ai run huggingface://TheBloke/phi-2-GGUF/phi-2.Q8_0.gguf
# From the Ollama OCI registry
local-ai run ollama://gemma:2b
# From a YAML config
local-ai run https://gist.githubusercontent.com/.../phi-2.yaml
# From a standard OCI registry (e.g., Docker Hub)
local-ai run oci://localai/phi-2:latest

Automatic Backend Detection: LocalAI automatically detects your GPU capabilities and downloads the appropriate backend. For advanced options, see GPU Acceleration.

For more details, see the Getting Started guide.

Latest News

For older news and full release notes, see GitHub Releases and the News page.

Features

Supported Backends & Acceleration

LocalAI supports 36+ backends including llama.cpp, vLLM, transformers, whisper.cpp, diffusers, MLX, MLX-VLM, and many more. Hardware acceleration is available for NVIDIA (CUDA 12/13), AMD (ROCm), Intel (oneAPI/SYCL), Apple Silicon (Metal), Vulkan, and NVIDIA Jetson (L4T). All backends can be installed on-the-fly from the Backend Gallery.

See the full Backend & Model Compatibility Table and GPU Acceleration guide.

Resources

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LocalAI is maintained by a small team of humans, together with the wider community of contributors.

A huge thank you to everyone who contributes code, reviews PRs, files issues, and helps users in Discord — LocalAI is a community-driven project and wouldn't exist without you. See the full contributors list.

Citation

If you utilize this repository, data in a downstream project, please consider citing it with:

@misc{localai,
  author = {Ettore Di Giacinto},
  title = {LocalAI: The free, Open source OpenAI alternative},
  year = {2023},
  publisher = {GitHub},
  journal = {GitHub repository},
  howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/go-skynet/LocalAI}},

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License

LocalAI is a community-driven project created by Ettore Di Giacinto and maintained by the LocalAI team.

MIT - Author Ettore Di Giacinto mudler@localai.io

Acknowledgements

LocalAI couldn't have been built without the help of great software already available from the community. Thank you!

Contributors

This is a community project, a special thanks to our contributors!

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