Add Kokoro-82M as a new TTS engine — 82M params, CPU realtime, 8 languages,
Apache 2.0. Unlike cloning engines, Kokoro uses pre-built voice styles, which
required a new profile type system to support non-cloning engines cleanly.
Kokoro engine:
- New kokoro_backend.py implementing TTSBackend protocol
- 50 built-in voices across en/es/fr/hi/it/pt/ja/zh
- KPipeline API with language-aware G2P routing via misaki
- PyInstaller bundling for misaki, language_tags, espeakng_loader, en_core_web_sm
Voice profile type system:
- New voice_type column: 'cloned' | 'preset' | 'designed' (future)
- Preset profiles store engine + voice ID instead of audio samples
- default_engine field on profiles — auto-selects engine on profile pick
- Create Voice dialog: toggle between 'Clone from audio' and 'Built-in voice'
- Edit dialog shows preset voice info instead of sample list for preset profiles
- Engine selector locks to preset engine when preset profile is selected
- Profile grid filters by engine — shows Kokoro voices when Kokoro selected
- Custom empty state when no preset profiles exist for selected engine
Bug fixes:
- Fix relative audio paths in DB causing 404s in production builds
- config.set_data_dir() now resolves to absolute paths
- Startup migration converts existing relative paths to absolute
Also updates PROJECT_STATUS.md and tts-engines.mdx developer guide.
Remove @torch.jit.script from the DAC shim's snake() function —
TorchScript calls inspect.getsource() which fails in PyInstaller
binaries (no .py source files).
Update all user-facing docs: 4 → 5 TTS engines, add TADA row to
every engine comparison table, mark TADA as Shipped in the upcoming
engines list, update architecture diagrams and tech stack tables.
- Backfill CHANGELOG.md from all 17 GitHub releases (was stale at v0.1.0)
- Add draft-release-notes and release-bump agent skills
- Remove stale PATCH_NOTES.md, mlx-test/, move PROJECT_STATUS to docs/notes
- Minor voicebox-server.spec cleanup
James Pine