| --- |
| title: Decompress |
| emoji: 🌿 |
| colorFrom: green |
| colorTo: blue |
| sdk: gradio |
| sdk_version: 6.18.0 |
| python_version: '3.12' |
| app_file: app.py |
| startup_duration_timeout: 45min |
| pinned: true |
| license: mit |
| short_description: A MiniCPM voice companion that knows when not to talk. |
| tags: |
| - gradio |
| - build-small-hackathon |
| - stress-management |
| - wellness |
| - full-duplex |
| - training-free |
| - rag |
| - track:backyard |
| - sponsor:openbmb |
| - sponsor:cohere |
| - sponsor:modal |
| - sponsor:openai |
| - achievement:offbrand |
| - tiny-titan |
| - minicpm |
| - cohere |
| models: |
| - openbmb/MiniCPM3-4B |
| - CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026 |
| - hexgrad/Kokoro-82M |
| - sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2 |
| --- |
| |
| # Decompress |
|
|
| Decompress proves the same small, training-free timing policy can make a companion wait through stress, backchannel lightly, then answer with one grounded step. |
|
|
| Decompress is a calm five-minute voice/text check-in companion. It is built for |
| the practical Backyard track: after a stressful moment, the app listens without |
| over-talking, gives a small backchannel when appropriate, and responds at the |
| pause with one grounded next step. |
|
|
| Try it on Hugging Face Space: https://build-small-hackathon-decompress.hf.space<br> |
| GitHub repo: https://github.com/Hcoder10/whentospeak |
|
|
| This is wellness support only. It is not medical advice, diagnosis, therapy, or |
| crisis care. |
|
|
| ## Why It Feels Less Robotic |
|
|
| The same WhenToSpeak controller from Pitch or Perish drives the timing. It does |
| not train a supervised turn-taking head. MiniCPM exposes the signals it already |
| has during inference: predictive surprise, hidden-state deltas, reply readiness, |
| and turn-end probability. The controller decides whether to stay silent, |
| backchannel, hold, or answer. |
|
|
| In the cached live-model timing eval, the controller reaches F1 `0.788` versus |
| `0.696` for the best baseline. The ablation is surprise-only `0.500`, |
| +readiness `0.538`, +change-point `0.563`, and full turn-end handling `0.788`. |
|
|
| ## Backyard Stack |
|
|
| - **OpenBMB:** `openbmb/MiniCPM3-4B` is the load-bearing brain for NLL, hidden |
| states, readiness, turn-end probability, and generated companion replies. |
| - **Cohere:** `CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026` powers push-to-talk voice |
| input, then the exact same text-streamed controller runs. |
| - **Modal:** protected A10 endpoints host MiniCPM and Cohere ASR with cached |
| weights. |
| - **Kokoro:** `hexgrad/Kokoro-82M` speaks the companion line from the Space CPU. |
| - **RAG:** `sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2` retrieves from a small, |
| cited, open-access wellness corpus. |
| - **OpenAI:** the public repo history is Codex-attributed. |
|
|
| The live demo runs on Modal, but the timing path uses small, on-device-class |
| weights: MiniCPM3-4B for the brain, a 2B Cohere ASR model, Kokoro-82M for |
| speech, and a compact local embedder. There is no supervised turn-taking head |
| and no cloud LLM call for the core when-to-speak policy. |
|
|
| ## Demo |
|
|
| <video controls src="eval/decompress_capture.mp4"></video> |
|
|
| Plain link fallback: [eval/decompress_capture.mp4](eval/decompress_capture.mp4) |
|
|
| Social post: SOCIAL_URL_PLACEHOLDER |
|
|
| ## Grounding Sources |
|
|
| The corpus is intentionally small and conservative. The UI cites retrieved |
| sources from WHO, NHS Every Mind Matters, NIH NCCIH, University of Rochester |
| Medical Center, and Scientific Reports. Suggestions are phrased as practical |
| stress-management steps, not medical claims. |
|
|
| ## How It Works |
|
|
| 1. Type a check-in or record one with the mic. |
| 2. Cohere Transcribe converts voice clips to English text. |
| 3. The check-in is streamed as word groups through MiniCPM on Modal. |
| 4. The training-free controller decides whether Decompress should wait, |
| backchannel, hold, or take the floor. |
| 5. The final reply is short, spoken with Kokoro, and shown beside citations. |
|
|
| ## Run Locally |
|
|
| The public Space is the intended demo. Local UI runs need the protected Modal |
| endpoint URL/token in environment variables or Space secrets. |
|
|
| ```bash |
| uv sync |
| uv run python apps/decompress/app.py |
| ``` |
|
|
| Expected environment for the live backend: |
|
|
| ```text |
| DECOMPRESS_BRAIN_ENDPOINT_URL |
| DECOMPRESS_BRAIN_ENDPOINT_TOKEN |
| DECOMPRESS_TRANSCRIBE_ENDPOINT_URL |
| DECOMPRESS_TRANSCRIBE_ENDPOINT_TOKEN |
| ``` |
|
|
