Dictation for developers

Roundhand knows the common code editors: Visual Studio Code, Cursor, Xcode, Windsurf and Zed. In each it uses its IDE and AI chat style, which keeps full sentences and punctuation. That suits the places you write most prose as a developer: the chat panel of an AI coding assistant, a pull request description, a comment above a tricky function. With cloud cleanup on, identifiers you name are set in code spans and code blocks in fences, so a prompt reads the way you would have typed it.

In Terminal, iTerm2, Ghostty, Warp, Alacritty and kitty, Roundhand keeps what you say to a single line with no full stop at the end, and it leaves commands, flags and paths as you said them, so git checkout main stays exactly that. When the window title shows a coding agent such as Claude Code or Codex running in the terminal, Roundhand switches to the IDE and AI chat style, because you are writing a message rather than a command. The title is all it reads, so it can guess wrong; pick a style for that terminal in Settings and it stops guessing.

Long prompts are where dictation pays off. You can explain the bug, the constraint and what you already tried in the time it takes to say it, then read it over before you send. Roundhand uses its IDE and AI chat style in the chat panel of Cursor and other editors, in Claude Code when it runs in a terminal, and on Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini in the browser. The Claude and ChatGPT desktop apps have no built-in style, so pick IDE and AI chat for them in Settings. If you want each dictation sent as soon as it lands, turn on Press Return after dictation in Settings; it is off by default, so nothing is sent until you choose.

Speech recognition hears words, and code is full of names that are not words. Roundhand's Dictionary fixes that: add an entry and every time you say the word, it is written your way, whether that is a product name, a library or a teammate's name. Dictionary entries apply before any cleanup runs, so they work offline too. For anything longer or unusual, it is quicker to say the sentence around the identifier and type the identifier itself.

The built-in styles are a starting point. In Settings, the Apps section lists the apps Roundhand has a built-in style for and the apps you have open, with the style each uses, and you can choose Terminal, IDE and AI chat, Chat or Prose for any of them, or switch Roundhand off for an app entirely.

Which code editors does Roundhand support?

Roundhand has a built-in style for Visual Studio Code, Cursor, Xcode, Windsurf and Zed. Other editors use the Prose style until you pick a different one in Settings.

Will Roundhand add a full stop to my terminal commands?

No, in a terminal Roundhand writes one line with no trailing full stop and leaves the casing of commands, flags and paths as you said them.

Can I dictate prompts into Claude Code or ChatGPT?

Yes, Roundhand writes into Claude Code running in a terminal, and into Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini in the browser, in its IDE and AI chat style, which keeps full sentences and punctuation. In a terminal it goes by the window title, so it can guess wrong. In the Claude or ChatGPT desktop app, choose that style for the app in Settings; until then it uses Prose.

Can I dictate code with Roundhand?

Roundhand is best for the prose around code: prompts, comments, commit messages and reviews. It writes short commands in a terminal well, but it does not turn spoken descriptions into code.

Does my code or prompt text leave the Mac?

Only if you turn on cloud cleanup: then the transcript text is sent to the cleanup provider, never the audio. With the offline cleanup, the text is tidied on your Mac.