GSoC Project Proposal: Voice & Audio Support for Eclipse Theia AI
Description
Voice interaction with AI assistants is rapidly emerging as a novel approach to coding, exemplified by the rising popularity of "Vibe Coding" - a more natural, conversational approach to programming that combines voice input and AI assistance. This project aims to enhance the existing Eclipse Theia AI framework by integrating comprehensive voice and audio capabilities, enabling voice-based interactions with the extensible AI chat agent infrastructure of Theia.
A key goal of this project is to implement these capabilities for the AI-powered Theia IDE, designed as a fundamental platform feature within Theia AI. This ensures also custom tools and specialized IDEs built on the Theia platform can seamlessly incorporate voice interaction with their AI features, expanding the ecosystem's flexibility.
The integration will provide a seamless voice experience for developers, allowing them to engage with Theia's extensible AI chat agents through natural conversation rather than solely through text input. The voice capabilities will be tightly integrated with the AI Chat views and other AI-powered features already present in Theia. This enhancement serves multiple important purposes:
- Efficiency: Voice commands often allow for faster expression of complex ideas, reducing the time spent typing detailed prompts to the AI.
- Accessibility: Voice input provides critical access for users with mobility limitations or repetitive strain injuries, making AI-assisted usage of code editors, domain-specific views and editors (e.g. diagrams) more inclusive.
- Cognitive Flow: Speaking allows developers to maintain their flow state without context switching between problem-solving and typing queries to the AI.
- Natural Interaction: Voice enables a more human-like conversation with AI assistants, creating a collaborative programming experience.
This project will deliver a comprehensive suite of audio features that integrate with Theia's existing AI capabilities, including voice-to-text for commands and queries, text-to-speech for hearing AI responses, configurable activation methods, multi-language support, and thoughtfully designed UI components to control these interactions. By implementing these capabilities as a platform feature, both the Theia IDE and custom tools built on Theia AI will offer developers a modern, accessible, and efficient way to leverage AI assistance that aligns with emerging natural coding workflows.
Links to Eclipse Project
- https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/ecd.theia
- https://theia-ide.org/
- https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia
Expected outcomes
- Integration of voice capabilities with Theia's AI infrastructure, such as Chat, but also other UI components
- Platform-level API for audio processing with exchangeable providers, local processing, remote audio services or multi-modal LLMs
- Flexible architecture allowing integrating of voice commands in custom user interfaces and editors
- Extensible set of voice commands that are available across the tool (e.g., similar to keybindings)
- Examples (e.g. in a domain-specific diagram editor) and documentation
Skills required/preferred
- Strong JavaScript/TypeScript development skills
- Experience with VS Code extension development or similar IDE extensions
- Familiarity with React for UI components
- Understanding of client-server architecture and protocols
- Basic knowledge of AI/LLM concepts and integration patterns
- Experience with package management in TypeScript environments
- Ability to work with existing codebases and follow established patterns
Project size
350 hours
Possible mentors:
Rating
Medium