Skills characteristic-voice

Use this skill whenever the user wants speech to sound more human, companion-like, or emotionally expressive. Triggers include: any mention of 'say like', 'talk like', 'speak like', 'companion voice', 'comfort me', 'cheer me up', 'sound more human', 'good night voice', 'good morning voice', or requests to add fillers, emotion, or personality to generated speech. Also use when the user wants to mimic a specific character's voice, apply speaking style presets (goodnight, morning, comfort, celebration, chatting), tune emotional parameters like warmth or tenderness, or make TTS output feel like a real person talking. If the user asks for a 'voice message', 'companion audio', 'character voice', or wants speech that sighs, laughs, hesitates, or sounds genuinely warm, use this skill. Do NOT use for plain text-to-speech without personality, music generation, sound effects, or general coding tasks unrelated to expressive speech.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/NoizAI/skills

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/NoizAI/skills "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/characteristic-voice" ~/.claude/skills/noizai-skills-characteristic-voice && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/characteristic-voice/SKILL.md

source content

characteristic-voice

Make your AI agent sound like a real companion — one who sighs, laughs, hesitates, and speaks with genuine feeling.

Credentials

Variable	Required	Description
`NOIZ_API_KEY`	Yes if using Noiz backend	API key from developers.noiz.ai. Not needed if using the local Kokoro backend.

The script saves a normalised copy of the key to

~/.noiz_api_key

(mode 600) for convenience. To set it:

bash skills/characteristic-voice/scripts/speak.sh config --set-api-key YOUR_KEY

Prerequisites

The included

speak.sh

script requires curl and python3 at runtime. Depending on which backend and features you use, you may also need:

Tool	When needed	Install hint
`curl` , `python3`	Always (core script)	Usually pre-installed
`kokoro-tts`	Kokoro (local/offline) backend	`uv tool install kokoro-tts`
`yt-dlp`	Downloading reference audio for voice cloning	github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
`ffmpeg`	Trimming reference audio clips	ffmpeg.org
`rg` (ripgrep)	Searching subtitle files	github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep

None of these are installed by the skill itself — provision them manually in your environment.

Privacy & Data Transmission

Noiz backend: When using the Noiz backend, the text you speak and any reference audio you provide are sent to
```
https://noiz.ai/v1
```
. If you supply
```
--ref-audio
```
, that audio file is uploaded for voice cloning.
Kokoro backend: Runs entirely locally — no data leaves your machine.
Choose the Kokoro backend (
```
--backend kokoro
```
) if you want fully offline processing.

Triggers

say like
talk like
speak like
companion voice
comfort me
cheer me up
sound more human

The Two Tricks

Non-lexical fillers — sprinkle in little human noises (hmm, haha, aww, heh) at natural pause points to make speech feel alive
Emotion tuning — adjust warmth, joy, sadness, tenderness to match the moment

Filler Sounds Palette

Sound	Feeling	Use for
hmm...	Thinking, gentle acknowledgment	Comfort, pondering
ah...	Realization, soft surprise	Discoveries, transitions
uh...	Hesitation, empathy	Careful moments
heh / hehe	Playful, mischievous	Teasing, light moments
haha	Laughter	Joy, humor
aww	Tenderness, sympathy	Deep comfort
oh? / oh!	Surprise, attention	Reacting to news
pfft	Stifled laugh	Playful disbelief
whew	Relief	After tension
~ (tilde)	Drawn out, melodic ending	Warmth, playfulness

Rules: 2–4 fillers per short message max. Place at natural pauses — sentence starts, thought shifts. Use

...

after fillers for a beat of silence,

at word endings for warmth.

Presets

Good Night

Gentle, warm, slightly sleepy. Slow pace.

Good Morning

Warm, cheerful but not overwhelming.

Comfort

Soft, understanding, unhurried. Give space. Don't rush to "fix" things.

Celebration

Excited, proud, genuinely happy.

Just Chatting

Relaxed, playful, natural.

Using a Character's Voice

When a user says something like "speak in Hermione's voice" or "sound like Tony Stark", first check whether a reference audio file already exists in

skills/characteristic-voice/

. If one does, use it directly with

--ref-audio

If no reference audio exists, you can create one — but read the warnings below first.

Preparing reference audio (one-time setup)

You need a short (10–30 s) WAV clip of the target voice. Possible sources:

User-provided audio — the safest option. Ask the user to supply their own recording.
Public-domain / CC-licensed clips — search for freely licensed material.
Extracting from online video — tools like
```
yt-dlp
```
and
```
ffmpeg
```
can download and trim audio. Example workflow:

yt-dlp "URL" --write-auto-sub --sub-lang en --skip-download -o tmp/clip
rg -n "target line" tmp/clip.en.vtt
yt-dlp "URL" -x --audio-format wav --download-sections "*00:00:00-00:00:25" -o tmp/clip
ffmpeg -i tmp/clip.wav -ss 00:00:02 -to 00:00:20 skills/characteristic-voice/character.wav

Copyright & privacy warning: Downloading and re-using someone's voice from copyrighted media (movies, TV, YouTube) may violate copyright or personality-rights laws depending on your jurisdiction. Do not upload private voice recordings or material you don't have permission to use. The reference audio is sent to
https://noiz.ai/v1
for voice cloning when using the Noiz backend. If this is a concern, consider using the local Kokoro backend instead.

Using reference audio

bash skills/characteristic-voice/scripts/speak.sh \
  --preset goodnight -t "Hmm... rest well~ Sweet dreams." \
  --ref-audio skills/characteristic-voice/character.wav -o night.wav

The

--ref-audio

flag uploads the file to the Noiz backend for voice cloning (requires

NOIZ_API_KEY

Usage

This skill provides

speak.sh

, a wrapper around the

tts

skill with companion-friendly presets.

# Use a preset (auto-sets emotion + speed)
bash skills/characteristic-voice/scripts/speak.sh \
  --preset goodnight -t "Hmm... rest well~ Sweet dreams." -o night.wav

# Custom emotion override
bash skills/characteristic-voice/scripts/speak.sh \
  -t "Aww... I'm right here." --emo '{"Tenderness":0.9}' --speed 0.75 -o comfort.wav

# With specific backend and voice
bash skills/characteristic-voice/scripts/speak.sh \
  --preset morning -t "Good morning~" --voice-id voice_abc --backend noiz -o morning.mp3 --format mp3

Run

bash skills/characteristic-voice/scripts/speak.sh --help

for all options.

Writing Guide for the Agent

Start soft — lead with a filler ("hmm...", "oh~"), not content
Mirror energy — gentle when they're low, match when they're high
Keep it brief — 1–3 sentences, like a voice message from a friend
End warmly — close with connection ("I'm here", "see you tomorrow~")
Don't lecture — listen and stay present; no unsolicited advice