From 479169b258d85907f1fa1a1d408668c8a4855441 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Theo Weijmer <t.weijmer@pensare.nl>
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2026 09:58:09 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] fix: skip silent recordings instead of transcribing them

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 Sources/SstCore/DictationController.swift       | 11 ++++++++++-
 .../SstCoreTests/DictationControllerTests.swift | 17 +++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 27 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Sources/SstCore/DictationController.swift b/Sources/SstCore/DictationController.swift
index 0577f6e..5db278c 100644
--- a/Sources/SstCore/DictationController.swift
+++ b/Sources/SstCore/DictationController.swift
@@ -13,20 +13,24 @@ public final class DictationController {
     private let cleaner: Cleaner
     private let inserter: TextInserting
     private let minimumSamples: Int
+    private let silenceThreshold: Float
 
     /// - Parameter minimumSamples: 16 kHz samples; default is 0.3 s.
+    /// - Parameter silenceThreshold: RMS below which a recording counts as silence and is skipped.
     public init(
         recorder: AudioRecording,
         transcriber: Transcriber,
         cleaner: Cleaner,
         inserter: TextInserting,
-        minimumSamples: Int = 4_800
+        minimumSamples: Int = 4_800,
+        silenceThreshold: Float = 0.005
     ) {
         self.recorder = recorder
         self.transcriber = transcriber
         self.cleaner = cleaner
         self.inserter = inserter
         self.minimumSamples = minimumSamples
+        self.silenceThreshold = silenceThreshold
     }
 
     public func handle(_ event: HotkeyEvent) async {
@@ -44,6 +48,11 @@ public final class DictationController {
                 state = .idle
                 return
             }
+            let energy = samples.reduce(0) { $0 + $1 * $1 }
+            guard (energy / Float(samples.count)).squareRoot() >= silenceThreshold else {
+                state = .idle
+                return
+            }
             await process(samples)
         default:
             break
diff --git a/Tests/SstCoreTests/DictationControllerTests.swift b/Tests/SstCoreTests/DictationControllerTests.swift
index 3ba6832..0fa5329 100644
--- a/Tests/SstCoreTests/DictationControllerTests.swift
+++ b/Tests/SstCoreTests/DictationControllerTests.swift
@@ -45,6 +45,23 @@ struct DictationControllerTests {
         #expect(inserter.inserted.isEmpty)
     }
 
+    @Test func silentRecordingIsDiscarded() async {
+        recorder.samples = [Float](repeating: 0, count: 16_000)
+        let controller = makeController()
+        var states: [DictationState] = []
+        var errors: [String] = []
+        controller.onStateChange = { states.append($0) }
+        controller.onError = { errors.append($0) }
+
+        await controller.handle(.pressed)
+        await controller.handle(.released)
+
+        #expect(states == [.recording, .idle])
+        #expect(transcriber.callCount == 0)
+        #expect(inserter.inserted.isEmpty)
+        #expect(errors.isEmpty)
+    }
+
     @Test func emptyTranscriptionIsNotInserted() async {
         recorder.samples = Self.oneSecond
         transcriber.result = .success("   \n")