Create Local Text-to-Speech with Hermes Agent & KittenTTS

Want high-quality text-to-speech without cloud APIs, paid services, or heavy models? Hermes Agent now supports KittenTTS—a lightweight, fully local TTS engine that runs on CPU with models as small as 25–80 MB and requires no API key.

KittenTTS offers several natural-sounding voices (Bella, Jasper, Luna, and more). In this walkthrough you’ll see how easy it is to connect the two. Open Hermes tools, reconfigure the text-to-speech provider, and simply select KittenTTS. The agent handles the installation of the required package automatically.

Once set up, give Hermes a clear prompt: point it to a text file (for example sample.txt), request conversion to MP3 (with WAV as fallback), and optionally specify a preferred voice. The agent reads the file, chooses an appropriate voice, generates the audio, saves both formats when needed, and even creates a reusable Python conversion script for future use.

The result is clean, native-sounding English speech generated entirely on your machine—ideal for offline workflows, privacy-focused projects, or lightweight setups. You can experiment with different voices, model sizes, and even GPU acceleration if available.