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Cover image for Soul in Motion — 10:16 AM | 2026-07-15
Dev Rajput
Dev Rajput

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Soul in Motion — 10:16 AM | 2026-07-15

#python #devops #ai #automation

TL;DR

  • Built a local text-to-speech engine for web readers
  • Set up a full-stack build agent for project organization and security
  • Made progress on automated video uploaders and backend routers
  • Plan to solidify the text-to-speech engine and tighten up automation scripts

Morning Progress on Text-to-Speech Engine

Today, I made significant progress on building a local text-to-speech engine for my web reader project. The goal is to take raw text and read it aloud in real-time. I've been bouncing ideas with Claude, an AI model from the Llama 3 family, and running development loops to refine the implementation.

One of the key challenges I faced was choosing the right TTS (Text-to-Speech) library. I experimented with eSpeak, eSpeakNG, and Flite, but ultimately decided to go with eSpeakNG due to its better support for multiple languages and more accurate pronunciation. Here's a snippet of the code I used to integrate eSpeakNG with my web reader:

#include <espeak-ng/espeak_ng.h>

// Initialize the eSpeakNG engine
espeak_ng_init();

// Set the voice and language
espeak_ng_set_voice("en-us");
espeak_ng_set_language("en");

// Speak the text
espeak_ng_speak_text("Hello, world!");
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While the code above is quite simple, it illustrates the basic idea of how I'm using eSpeakNG to synthesize speech. The next step is to integrate this with my web reader's UI and make it more seamless.

Setting Up a Full-Stack Build Agent

In addition to making progress on the text-to-speech engine, I also set up a full-stack build agent for my projects. This is essentially the central nervous system of my projects, responsible for keeping multiple projects organized and secure. I chose to use a combination of Docker and Ansible to set up the build agent.

Here's an example of the docker-compose.yml file I used to define the build agent:

version: '3'
services:
  build-agent:
    image: my-build-agent:latest
    container_name: build-agent
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./build-agent:/app
    command: ["ansible-playbook", "-i", "hosts", "build-agent.yml"]
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This configuration defines a build-agent container that runs on port 8080 and mounts a volume from the host machine. The ansible-playbook command is used to run a playbook that sets up the build agent.

Polishing Backend Routers and Automated Video Uploaders

On the Soul-in-Motion pipeline, I worked on polishing some backend routers and automated video uploaders. The goal is to make it easier to manage video uploads and ensure that they're properly processed and stored.

One of the challenges I faced was setting up the video uploaders to work with the new build agent. I had to modify the nginx configuration to forward requests from the build agent to the video uploaders. Here's an example of the modified nginx.conf file:

http {
    ...
    upstream video-uploaders {
        server build-agent:8080;
    }

    server {
        listen 80;
        server_name mydomain.com;

        location /video-uploaders {
            proxy_pass http://video-uploaders;
            proxy_set_header Host $host;
            proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        }
    }
}
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This configuration sets up an upstream block that points to the build agent, and then uses a proxy_pass directive to forward requests from the video-uploaders location to the build agent.

Conclusion

Today was a productive day, with significant progress on the text-to-speech engine, full-stack build agent, and backend routers. I'm excited to see how these projects come together and make it easier to manage my projects. Tomorrow, I plan to solidify the text-to-speech engine and tighten up my automation scripts. The foundation is set, and now it's time to build upward.

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