Bard

Interactive narration system

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• Node.js 18+
• FFmpeg and espeak

Setup

# System dependencies (macOS)
brew install ffmpeg espeak

# Python environment
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pip install numpy setuptools wheel

# Install aeneas for audio-text alignment
# Note: Aeneas (last updated 2017) is incompatible with Python 3.12+ and NumPy 2.0+
# The flags below provide espeak library paths and use the venv's numpy
LDFLAGS="-L$(brew --prefix espeak)/lib" \
CFLAGS="-I$(brew --prefix espeak)/include" \
pip install --no-build-isolation aeneas

# NLTK data
python -c "import nltk; nltk.download('punkt_tab')"

# Frontend
cd frontend && npm install

Configuration

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env with your API keys:

ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=...
ELEVENLABS_VOICE_ID=...
OPENAI_API_KEY=...

Running

1. Preprocessing (one-time)

# Prepare text only (no API keys needed)
python -m bard.preprocessing.text_prep

# Full pipeline with audio generation (requires ElevenLabs)
bard-preprocess

2. Start Backend

bard-serve

3. Start Frontend

cd frontend
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173

API

Endpoint	Description
GET /chapters	List chapters
GET /chapters/{id}/audio	Stream audio
GET /chapters/{id}/alignment	Get timestamps
POST /ask	Ask a question