win_say – Text to speech module for Windows to speak messages and optionally play sounds

Synopsis

  • Uses .NET libraries to convert text to speech and optionally play .wav sounds. Audio Service needs to be running and some kind of speakers or headphones need to be attached to the windows target(s) for the speech to be audible.

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Comments
end_sound_path
path
Full path to a .wav file containing a sound to play after the text has been spoken.
Useful on conference calls to alert other speakers that ansible has finished speaking.
msg
string
The text to be spoken.
Use either msg or msg_file.
Optional so that you can use this module just to play sounds.
msg_file
path
Full path to a windows format text file containing the text to be spoken.
Use either msg or msg_file.
Optional so that you can use this module just to play sounds.
speech_speed
integer
Default:
0
How fast or slow to speak the text.
Must be an integer value in the range -10 to 10.
-10 is slowest, 10 is fastest.
start_sound_path
path
Full path to a .wav file containing a sound to play before the text is spoken.
Useful on conference calls to alert other speakers that ansible has something to say.
voice
string
Which voice to use. See notes for how to discover installed voices.
If the requested voice is not available the default voice will be used. Example voice names from Windows 10 are Microsoft Zira Desktop and Microsoft Hazel Desktop.

Notes

Note

  • Needs speakers or headphones to do anything useful.

  • To find which voices are installed, run the following Powershell commands.

    Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Speech $speech = New-Object -TypeName System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer $speech.GetInstalledVoices() | ForEach-Object { $_.VoiceInfo } $speech.Dispose()

  • Speech can be surprisingly slow, so it’s best to keep message text short.

See Also

See also

win_msg – Sends a message to logged in users on Windows hosts

The official documentation on the win_msg module.

win_toast – Sends Toast windows notification to logged in users on Windows 10 or later hosts

The official documentation on the win_toast module.

Examples

- name: Warn of impending deployment
  win_say:
    msg: Warning, deployment commencing in 5 minutes, please log out.

- name: Using a different voice and a start sound
  win_say:
    start_sound_path: C:\Windows\Media\ding.wav
    msg: Warning, deployment commencing in 5 minutes, please log out.
    voice: Microsoft Hazel Desktop

- name: With start and end sound
  win_say:
    start_sound_path: C:\Windows\Media\Windows Balloon.wav
    msg: New software installed
    end_sound_path: C:\Windows\Media\chimes.wav

- name: Text from file example
  win_say:
    start_sound_path: C:\Windows\Media\Windows Balloon.wav
    msg_file: AppData\Local\Temp\morning_report.txt
    end_sound_path: C:\Windows\Media\chimes.wav

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key Returned Description
message_text
string
success
The text that the module attempted to speak.

Sample:
Warning, deployment commencing in 5 minutes.
voice
string
success
The voice used to speak the text.

Sample:
Microsoft Hazel Desktop
voice_info
string
when requested voice could not be loaded
The voice used to speak the text.

Sample:
Could not load voice TestVoice, using system default voice


Status

Authors

  • Jon Hawkesworth (@jhawkesworth)

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