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Install

Status: Current Last modified: 2026-10-27 (commit c0e233d0)

Everything here comes from the latest release.

Just want to check CHAT files, and you are not a programmer? Get the desktop app below. You never need a terminal.

The Chatter app checks CHAT transcripts in an ordinary window: choose a file, read its diagnostics, edit it in your usual transcript editor, then re-check. It does not edit transcripts itself. No terminal or separate CLI installation is needed. It offers updates for you to approve.

macOS

Official Mac releases are Developer ID signed and Apple-notarized. If macOS reports unexpected damage or an unverifiable download, stop and check that you have the intended release; do not disable system security to make it open.

  1. Download Chatter for your Mac:

    Not sure which you have? Choose About This Mac in the Apple menu: an Apple chip uses Apple Silicon; an Intel processor uses the Intel download.

  2. Open the downloaded .dmg file.

  3. Drag Chatter onto the Applications folder in the window that appears.

  4. Open Chatter from your Applications folder (or Launchpad).

Windows (Intel/AMD 64-bit, “x64”)

Download Chatter for Windows and run the installer. Windows binaries are not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen may warn on first run. Verify the source and selected release before deciding whether to proceed; follow your organization’s software policy. Do not disable SmartScreen globally.

Linux (Intel/AMD 64-bit, “x86_64”)

Download Chatter (AppImage) (make it executable, then run it) or the .deb package (install with your package manager).

(The desktop app is x86_64-only on Windows and Linux today; macOS has both Apple Silicon and Intel builds. The chatter command-line tool below also ships a Linux ARM build.)

Continue with your first desktop validation session.

chatter, the command-line tool (for programmers and automation)

If you are comfortable in a terminal, the chatter CLI validates, normalizes, converts (JSON), watches, and batch-processes CHAT files, and is the right tool for scripting and CI.

macOS / Linux:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/TalkBank/chatter/releases/latest/download/chatter-installer.sh | sh

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://github.com/TalkBank/chatter/releases/latest/download/chatter-installer.ps1 | iex

Then run chatter --version and chatter --help, followed by the practice tutorial. Full reference: CLI installation and CLI Reference. Official installer-based installations can use chatter experimental update; source and package-manager installations must use their original installation method.

talkbank-lsp language server (editor integration)

For live CHAT validation, hover, go-to-definition, and cross-tier alignment inside an LSP-aware editor (Neovim, Emacs, Helix, Zed, VS Code, and others), install the standalone language server. It is separate from the desktop app:

macOS / Linux:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/TalkBank/chatter/releases/latest/download/talkbank-lsp-installer.sh | sh

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://github.com/TalkBank/chatter/releases/latest/download/talkbank-lsp-installer.ps1 | iex

Or download the per-platform archive (talkbank-lsp-<target>.tar.xz, or .zip on Windows) from the release and point your editor’s LSP client at the talkbank-lsp binary (it speaks LSP over stdio on .cha files, language id chat).

Follow the editor integration tutorial to configure a client, check that it attached, and verify diagnostics after an edit. Running talkbank-lsp alone in a terminal does not open an editor: it waits for protocol messages on standard input.

Editor quick fixes do not supply missing participant names, roles or languages. Enter those facts yourself: an undeclared speaker or missing/empty header does not establish the right value. E308, E504 and E507 therefore offer no guessed edit, consistent with the CLI fix policy. Diagnostics remain visible, including parser recovery diagnostics when a malformed header cannot be lowered. Other supported quick fixes remain available.

Rust crates and the grammar (embed in your own program)

To embed CHAT parsing / validation / transformation in your own program, depend on the talkbank-* crates and the tree-sitter-talkbank grammar. They are source-available from this repository (not yet published to crates.io). See Library usage and the CHAT format overview.

As a 0.x release, APIs and flags may change before 1.0; see the Release Notes. For audio + ML pipelines (transcribe, force-align, morphotag), see the upstream batchalign3 project, which has its own installation flow.

This page last changed: 2026-10-27 (commit c0e233d0). The whole book last changed: 2026-10-27 (commit 5bfee2f9).