Stop breaking your flow to type git commits. Speak your commit message in seconds and get back to coding.
Every developer knows the moment: you have just finished a focused coding session, your changes are staged, and now you need to context-switch from thinking in code to thinking in English to write a commit message. It feels like a speed bump on an otherwise smooth road. What if you could just say what you changed, and have it appear as text?
With Steno, that is exactly how it works. Steno is a native macOS menu bar app that turns your speech into text in any application. Hold a hotkey, speak, release, and your words appear at the cursor. For developers who make dozens of commits per day, this small change eliminates a surprising amount of friction.
Commit messages are a unique form of writing. They are short, descriptive, and follow predictable patterns. You almost always know exactly what you want to say before you start typing. The bottleneck is not composing the message in your head; it is the physical act of typing it out. That makes commit messages a perfect candidate for voice dictation.
Most developers type at 40 to 60 words per minute, but speak at 130 to 150 words per minute. A typical commit message is 10 to 20 words long. With typing, that takes 10 to 15 seconds including context-switching. With voice, it takes 3 to 5 seconds. Multiply that by 20 to 30 commits per day, and you are saving 5 to 10 minutes daily, all while staying in flow.
1 Install Steno and set your hotkey
Download Steno from stenofast.com and drop it into your Applications folder. On first launch, it will ask for microphone and accessibility permissions. Set your preferred hotkey in the settings. The default is the right Option key, which keeps your left hand free for keyboard shortcuts.
2 Stage your changes as usual
Use git add in your terminal or your GUI client's staging interface. Nothing changes about your normal git workflow. Steno only activates when you hold the hotkey, so it never interferes with your terminal commands or editor.
3 Place your cursor in the commit message field
Whether you are using git commit in the terminal (which opens your editor), a GUI client like Tower or Fork, or the built-in source control panel in VS Code or Xcode, click into the commit message field so your cursor is active.
4 Hold the hotkey and speak your commit message
Press and hold your Steno hotkey. You will see a small overlay confirming that recording has started. Now speak your commit message in a natural, conversational tone. There is no need to speak slowly or over-enunciate. Steno uses Groq Whisper for transcription, which handles natural speech accurately.
5 Release and commit
Let go of the hotkey. Within a second, your spoken words appear as text in the commit message field. Review the text, make any small edits if needed, and hit Enter or click Commit. Done.
Here is what natural voice dictation looks like for common commit scenarios. The blockquotes show what you say, followed by what appears as text.
"Fix null pointer exception in user profile loader when avatar URL is missing"
Output: Fix null pointer exception in user profile loader when avatar URL is missing
"Add dark mode support to the settings panel and persist user preference to local storage"
Output: Add dark mode support to the settings panel and persist user preference to local storage
"Refactor authentication middleware to use async await instead of callbacks"
Output: Refactor authentication middleware to use async await instead of callbacks
Start with the verb. The best commit messages follow imperative mood: "Add," "Fix," "Refactor," "Update," "Remove." When you speak, naturally begin with the action verb. This maps perfectly to conventional commit style and Steno transcribes it accurately.
Speak in one breath for single-line commits. For short commit messages, say the entire message in a single phrase without pausing. This gives Steno the full context and produces more accurate transcription than speaking word by word.
Use "new line" for multi-line messages. If you follow the convention of a short subject line plus a detailed body, you can say "new line" or "next line" between the subject and body. For example: "Fix login timeout... new line... Increase session duration from 30 minutes to 2 hours to reduce re-authentication friction."
Do not worry about capitalization. Steno automatically capitalizes the first word of your sentence. For technical terms like API, URL, or JSON, the Whisper model recognizes these acronyms and capitalizes them correctly in most cases.
Because Steno inserts text at your cursor using macOS accessibility APIs, it works everywhere you write commit messages:
Let us do the math for a typical development day:
The real value is not just the raw time. It is the preservation of mental flow. Every time you switch from thinking about code to thinking about typing, there is a cognitive cost. Voice dictation keeps that transition seamless because speaking is more natural than typing. You can read more about how Steno handles the audio pipeline and text insertion in our technical deep dive.
Yes. Steno uses Groq Whisper for transcription, which handles technical vocabulary well. Words like API, refactor, middleware, and framework names are recognized accurately. For very niche library names, you can always make a quick manual correction after dictation.
Steno works in any text field on macOS, including terminal editors like nano or vim in insert mode. It uses macOS accessibility APIs to insert text at the cursor position, so the underlying application does not matter. Learn more about why native macOS integration matters.
Most developers type at 40 to 60 WPM but speak at 130 to 150 WPM. For a typical 15-word commit message, voice saves about 5 to 8 seconds per commit. Over hundreds of commits per month, the cumulative time savings are significant.
Yes. You can say "new line" or "next line" to create line breaks, making it easy to add a subject line followed by a detailed body. This works in any editor or git client that supports multi-line commit messages.
Steno is free to download. Install it in 30 seconds and speak your next commit message.
Download Steno for Mac