VS Code has no built in dictation. Here is what does.
Microsoft's Speech extension adds voice to the chat panel. Everything else you type in VS Code is still the keyboard, and most of what you type is everything else.
What exists today
VS Code does not dictate into the editor. Microsoft publishes a VS Code Speech extension on the marketplace, and what it adds is voice for the chat side of the editor. That is a real feature and worth having if chat is where your words go.
What it is not is general dictation. It does not fill in a commit message, a comment above a function, a pull request description, a search field, a rename dialog or the terminal pane. Those are separate fields inside the same window, and an extension scoped to chat does not see them.
The system wide approach
Zumbo does not integrate with VS Code at all, which is exactly why it works everywhere in it. It types where the cursor is. Put the cursor somewhere, hold your shortcut, talk, let go, and the words land there in about a fifth of a second.
Hold it to talk, tap it to toggle, Escape cancels. Pick the key in Settings.
- A doc comment above the function you just wrote.
- The commit message in the source control panel, with the actual reasoning in it.
- The terminal pane, including a coding agent running inside it.
- Search and replace, the command palette, rename dialogs.
- The chat panel too, if you would rather have one shortcut for everything.
The same shortcut works outside the editor as well, so the message to a colleague explaining what you found does not require a different tool.
Setting it up
- Install Zumbo and pick your shortcut in Settings during setup. Any key you like; you can change it later.
- Turn on the developer tools vocabulary pack when it asks what you dictate most.
- Put the cursor in VS Code wherever the words should go.
- Hold the shortcut, talk, let go.
There is no session limit, so a full paragraph of explanation is one press rather than four attempts.
Where it earns its place
Not writing code. Dictating a for loop is a party trick and nobody keeps doing it. It earns its place on the prose that surrounds the code, which is most of what a working day contains and almost all of what goes unwritten: why this approach and not the obvious one, what the failure actually looked like, what the reviewer needs to know, what you tried first.
Those get skipped because typing them costs more than they appear to be worth in the moment. Said out loud they take fifteen seconds, and the codebase is better for having them.
On device, which matters here
The speech engine ships inside the app and runs on your Mac, so no code, comment or commit message is uploaded to be transcribed. There is no account and no API key. If you work somewhere that has an opinion about where source material goes, this is the version that does not require a conversation.
Related: dictation for developers, dictating into Cursor, and how Zumbo keeps your voice on your Mac.
Does VS Code have dictation built in?
Not in the editor itself. Microsoft publishes a VS Code Speech extension, which adds voice to the chat side of the editor. There is no general dictation into files, the commit box or the terminal.
Why not just use the extension?
If chat is where you want to talk, use it. This page is about the other fields: comments, commit messages, pull request descriptions, search, rename dialogs and the integrated terminal, which an editor extension does not reach.
Does this work in the integrated terminal?
Yes. Zumbo types where the cursor is, so the terminal pane inside VS Code is no different from any other place with a cursor, including a coding agent running in it.
Will it know my language's keywords?
Turn on the developer tools vocabulary pack and the common names come out right. For your own modules and services, correct a word once with Teach and it is heard your way from then on.
Does this work in forks of VS Code?
Yes, and in anything else. Zumbo does not integrate with an application, it types into the focused field, so Cursor, Windsurf, Positron and plain VS Code all behave the same.
Free for 3 days, everything unlocked. Then $15 once. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon.